CAMDEN — Preble Shawnee Local School District will be growing its breakfast/lunch distribution program this week. As the district had a large response for food distribution compared to the previous week, officials will increase the number of meals for the coming weeks.
This also means changing the pick-up location to the Jr/Sr High School on Wednesday from 6-7 p.m. Families are asked to pull around to the back of the buidling along the curb, stop near the steps, and remain in their vehicles.
The change is due to the number of bags distributed. The first week Preble Shawnee hosted its own pick-up program, 350 meals were served. This past week, the number of meals requested increased.
Superintendent Matt Bishop explained, the change in location is also an attempt to make the packing and distribution easier on volunteers. Food is distributed through the district, with staff volunteers helping to make the day a success.
“There is a lot of traffic pattern accessibility to hold a lot more people picking food up at one time [at the Jr/Sr High school]. Yesterday, we had quite a backlog of cars in Camden. We’re also going to make sure there are several volunteers that can take food for people who don’t have transportation,” he said last week. “We thought it was better to have the one central location so we can sustain this for weeks to come.”
In this pickup program, five days of breakfast and lunches are given to all Preble Shawnee students who are interested. Families are asked to provide the name of the student when they pick up their meals.
For Bishop — and all Preble County Superintendents — it was important that they make food available for their students through this crisis, as a way to support them and their learning.
“It was one of the first things we talked about as a group of superintendents, during this crisis, making sure our kids receive the breakfast and lunches through this process. For a lot of different students, that is a meal they can count on and we wanted to make sure there was some consistency in what they were getting,” he said.
“We know that nutrition is important. We understand that the education going on at home is not the same as what was happening at school on a daily basis, but we do want learning activities to go on and if they’re hungry, the things we provide online are not going to be as successful. We know that these are all growing bodies and having good nutrition is definitely part of the process to educate our children. We want to make sure we’re offering a good product for the community and it is something the kids can still be connected to school with. Hopefully we can get through this quick and get back to normal soon.”
