The delivery van used to provide meals in the community will not be delivered in the Rumford area this summer, program director Jeanne LaPointe said. (Courtesy of Stewart Smith Photography)
RUMFORD — Due to limited staffing this summer, the school nutrition meal delivery for students in the school district is on pause for this summer, according to Regional School Unit 10 Food Nutrition Director Jeanne LaPointe.
The local delivery program, which has existed for nine years, could not continue, she said.
“I had lots of staff express interest in working this summer — then folks backed away,” said LaPointe on June 22. “We were a little disappointed.”
RSU 10’s school nutrition program utilizes a dedicated delivery van to expand access to free meals for children in food-insecure regions. Originally funded through grants from Full Plates Full Potential and Friends of the River Valley, the van is dispatched to bring nutritional support directly to communities.
“We needed to have at least five people to work, and people just had other things that came up this summer,” LaPointe said. “My staff are school year employees. So, if I happen to have time in the summer and they want hours, then they can work. Sometimes, people just need a break, or they’re taking care of grandchildren or they’re doing other things. So they’re not year round employees.”
She said the workers have to be school employees.
“People require training. This is a federal program and we can’t just throw people on the van and say, here, help us hand out food,” she added. “That’s the one place where we need people who are very trained in the program.”
LaPointe said the USDA is very strict about this program.
“We might have served 40 to 50 students, maybe a wee bit more, at a stop on a busy day. We had two stops last year, one at the Mexico Town Hall and one in the Strathglass Park in Rumford,” she said.
There are a couple options, LaPointe said. Some of the affected students will be served meals through the end of July at two programs at Mountain Valley Community School. One is the 21st Century Program, which has about 80 kids, and the other is Extended School Year programming, which has another 45 children.
“So we are offering meals. It’s just not in the community,” she said.
LaPointe said summer EBT funds will be available to all families who receive SNAP benefits from the state this summer. These are extended to those who cannot access summer meal sites and the funds are downloaded onto EBT cards automatically.
Unlike other communities, LaPointe said there is no summer-long recreation program in the area, which could have been used to help distribute meals.
“That would be a perfect pairing for summer meals. And last summer, we also fed the YMCA camp and that’s not happening this year,” she said.
A recent event held at Good Samaritan Missionary Services in Mexico, which expects to be feeding more children this summer. (Courtesy of Good Samaritan Missionary Services)
Another option for meals during the summer is at Good Samaritan Missionary Services in Mexico, a local nonprofit with a food pantry. They offer hot community meals and home-delivered food for shut-ins. It operates from its headquarters at 33 Roxbury Road.
President Michelle Williams said they are open Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
In the first week of being open, she said at least 30 of the roughly 70 attendees of the soup kitchen were children, and she expects that number to grow.
“We expect an upswing with children due to no community lunches,” Williams said.
Williams said her organization heard about the cancelation of the school nutrition meal deliveries this summer when RSU 10 made the announcement, leaving them “no time to prepare for this.”
Williams said contrary to some people’s beliefs, “we do not get help from food banks like Good Shepherd; we rely on grants and donations. We are fundraising as time permits, but community involvement is vital to keeping our doors open with this issue.”
Good Samaritan Missionary Services will hold a chicken barbeque July 25 in the parking lot as a fundraiser for the organization. Williams said they are trying to pull together a musical afternoon at the Snowshoe Club in Rumford with raffles and so forth. They also do a vendor fair monthly at their building.
People may also donate by check or cash directly to Good Samaritan at 33 Roxbury Road, Mexico. They also accept Walmart or Hannnaford gift cards.
“All we can do is hope that we even start a little earlier next year and try to secure staffing sooner,” LaPointe said. “I thought I had folks lined up in April, so I didn’t feel like I had to reach out and post. It was really when I was trying to firm up the staffing in the last three to four weeks that people said ‘I think I’m going to have to pass this summer.’”
She added that a lot of families impacted were those based at Mountain Valley Community School.
LaPointe said the meal delivery program is “kind of above and beyond, but it’s nice for folks that want to extend their paycheck and want to help feed kids.”
