Episode Transcript
[00:00:16] Speaker A: Hello, and welcome back to just a bite. If you are a new listener or it has been a minute, you may not recognize me, so I want to reintroduce myself. My name is Carol Whitmer, and I am currently the director of member services with the Ohio association of Food Banks.
In my past, I have served in many positions with the association in the past 16 years that I have worked here, one of which has been the director of child nutrition initiatives. So I'd say that one of my favorite things that I did throughout the years and in the summertime was going out and visiting summer food service sites and meeting kids and talking to parents that benefited from the program. So first, I'd like to welcome both our guests today. The first one is Jalara O'Hare.
She has been an advocate for the past several months and working with us. And she is a student, a single mom, a teacher's aide, and a snap present.
Also today, joining us today will be Chrissy Musser. She is the food service director at Meigs local schools in Meigs County, Ohio.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: Hi, Jamara. It's so good to talk with you.
You too, Sarah.
[00:01:35] Speaker C: Thank you for having me.
[00:01:37] Speaker B: Of course, I will have the listeners kind of peek behind the curtain a little bit. And Jalara was definitely supposed to record with Carol for this episode, but I and totally did not record the first take.
So I have the honor of speaking with her about Summer EDT, you know, hunger, you know, across all ages, and just talking about the great knowledge that you have. So I'm really excited to talk with you about this.
[00:02:20] Speaker C: I am so glad to be here. I love this opportunity. I love you guys. You're amazing and so supportive.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: Oh, thank you so much, kiddo.
So I would love for you to introduce yourself to listeners, kind of share, you know, what, you know, whatever you're comfortable with in terms of your life, your school, you know, your family, you know, anything that you would want to share with the listeners.
[00:02:47] Speaker C: Okay. Thank you, Sarah. So I'm Joelara O'Hara.
I am a proud mom of an incoming sophomore, high school sophomore. I don't know how in the world the time has passed that quickly, but between him and a couple of job experiences, I have returned to school recently in a few ways. I recently took a position at southwestern city schools elementary School on the far west side of Columbus in an educational aid role and have found my favorite thing. My job, my career is going to be as a teacher.
And I've returned to Columbus State to start my education as an educator.
And so just a regular lifelong Columbus, Ohioan, working in a school with my son, who is going to the school in the same district and living in a neighborhood with a. With a garden and just kind of making it out here. And luckily, I've been able to connect with you guys at the Ohio association of Food Banks to share my feedback, kind of my unique perspective as a person who receives benefits and also see SNAP benefits at work in the community.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: Absolutely. Just curious, what is your favorite part about summer?
[00:04:23] Speaker C: Oh, about summer is the no schedule thing, as much as we can make it happen, but the late night walks, even with our new friends, the cicadas outside, and summer stargazing and just kind of being a little more free from schedule and routine.
[00:04:41] Speaker B: Love that. Yes. You'll have it for the rest of your career with being a teacher and having your summers off, which is so nice. Such a perk, for sure.
[00:04:53] Speaker D: Awesome.
[00:04:54] Speaker C: Fringe benefit.
[00:04:55] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. Well, awesome. Well, I'd love to kind of talk a little bit about your work as an education aide.
Like you had mentioned, you're in a very unique school district.
For those of you who don't know, this is in Franklin county.
Is it just Franklin county, or is there another county that's encompassed in the district?
[00:05:21] Speaker C: You know, we're close. We're right on the border of Madison county also, but we are, I think it's the 6th largest, or, I'm sorry, it's the second largest school district in Ohio, second only to a district in Cleveland. And so our district, everybody knows that Franklin county is humongous, but we have kiddos from what areas that are considered rural, urban.
We've got all sorts of families from families that have been out here on the west side for a long time. This is multi generation attendance at our schools. We've got brand new Americans who are coming from different locations, you know, all over the world. We've got a spanish speaking population, a ukrainian population. We've got new friends coming to our schools from Africa. So very unique, very different. I love that in my job in the crosswalk in the mornings, welcoming everyone to school, that depending on the day of the week and whether or not it's raining, my friends in the crosswalk, where I'm able to greet them in English, Spanish, Ukrainian, Somali, Arabic, it just. It's all kinds of different people from all kinds of different backgrounds and socioeconomic situations.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Like, truly a melting pot, it sounds like.
[00:06:52] Speaker D: Yes.
[00:06:53] Speaker B: Yeah.
I would love to hear a little bit about how you kind of see maybe food insecurity and, you know, economic instability or stability kind of show up in the classroom. How is that? How are you seeing that firsthand?
[00:07:13] Speaker C: Of course, kids adjusting, especially at the beginning of the year. I'm excited to welcome the new kindergartners. We're all trying to figure out school together, especially the little people.
And you see a lot in the lunchroom at the beginning of the year. You see kiddos who are getting school lunches for the first time. And these may be kids who have exclusively eaten a chicken nugget at every meal for their whole life by their preference. Ask me how I know if Wendy's had had a rewards program when my teenager was their age, we would be top shareholders. Because as much as you know, I love and encourage and try to get my son to try different things. When he was little, we would oscillate from feta cheese at the grocery store and mediterranean food all the time to a period of time where all we ate was chicken nuggets. I think that. I think everybody can kind of identify with that now. We are much better, but it did take a little time. So we're looking at that in the lunch room. We're looking at. I can think of one specific kiddo in particular who has the most beautiful bento lunchbox with stuffed grape leaves and totally vegan beautiful cut up, fresh vegetables and just all kinds of things. Next to her is this additional beautiful gourmet packed lunch. And both of them are ganging up on the kiddo with the lunchable with the chocolate sauce in it, and they're smearing it all over their pizza and ignoring these beautiful lunches that I would pay $10 for and eating pizza with sprinkles on it from the cafeteria, like. But we do also notice when kiddos are at school and do have food insecurity, it's usually the first question that I ask because it's the first question I would want someone to ask me if I was having a rough day is, have you eaten today? What? Have you eaten today? Do you need something to eat?
We do have a representation at school of kiddos that are on free breakfast and free lunch.
And so that is something all different socioeconomic circumstances at school. But our first question, typically when someone's having a rough day is, have you eaten today? And we try hard not to make that a barrier to their learning, because ultimately that's what we want to do, is to get them to be the best and brightest that they can be and let their personality shine through. But it's hard to do that when your stomach's grumbling.
Same for me at Columbus State. If I'm at Columbus State doing my classes and it is funny, and I've been in that exact situation, like, I'm having a really bad day, it's because I'm hungry.
You're not the same when you're hungry or you're not yourself when you're hungry. What's the commercial?
[00:10:13] Speaker B: Right? Exactly.
[00:10:16] Speaker C: But I recently found the mid Ohio market at Columbus State, which is a food pantry that is open several days out of the week during school hours. And they also have small baskets in communal areas throughout campus.
Columbus State is also very unique.
I have occasionally found students that were older than me. That's exciting for me. Usually they're kind of taken aback by the high fives, the random high fives. Like, yeah, we're back here doing the thing.
But baskets throughout campus. With the hours of the mid Ohio market at Columbus State, snack baskets and then directions to the food pantry throughout campus has been really, really helpful.
[00:10:59] Speaker B: That's amazing. Yeah, you were telling me about that earlier, and I didn't even realize that that was the thing. But that's such a good tool, really, to get people seeing, you know, what is, like, right on campus that they can tap into and trying to break down some of the stigma that ultimately happens there.
[00:11:20] Speaker C: It's a lot easier than standing up in your classes and yelling, does anyone have a pack of fruit snacks?
[00:11:28] Speaker B: Exactly.
Well, that's wonderful. And I love that you're able to talk about not just, you know, k through twelve or elementary school, but also talk about really, it's. It's not just pre k through grade twelve. It's really the whole spectrum and really the whole spectrum of our lives, you know?
And, like, just like you, when I'm hungry, I get very cranky. It's just the reality. We all do, right?
[00:12:07] Speaker C: Throw a piece of cheese at me and come back in five minutes. Like, give me a minute. What's in the vending machine downstairs?
It's cool, though. It's super cool. I love the program that I'm in, which is early childhood education and development.
I think the pandemic did something really cool for people, because I'm seeing a lot of people back in school doing undergrad at Columbus State. I think.
I think it gave us a chance, although there were, of course, terrible things about it for everyone, and were definitely changed as a society. I think the people, some of us, had the opportunity to reflect and revisit what we were doing in our everyday lives.
So me returning to school to become an educator. I don't know if I would have made the diversion from what I was doing before without the kind of universal intervention that we all had. There are lots of other folks at Columbus State, I think, who receive SNaP benefits. It's something when you are in school and devoting your time to that instead of being in a workplace full time, that that does become a benefit that's available to you based on your income.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. And, you know, all of this really makes sense, and it's like, really not rock and science. I know that we, like, we've talked about, you know, college students and even folks in the workplace and all of this sort of stuff, but children really consistently need access to foods in order to learn and develop. But unfortunately, we know that this is not always the case. And really, the data supports what you shared. Anecdotally that's happening in the lunchroom. According to the USDA, more than 13 million children faced hunger in 2022. That is one in every five children in this country. Being unsure about where they're going to get their next meal, it's really heartbreaking and it is awful. Yeah.
Additionally, families with children are more likely to face hunger compared to other families. And like many other public health indicators we've discussed on the podcast, disparities persist, leaving black and latino children twice as likely to face hunger than their white counterparts.
You know, I know that we could dedicate an entire podcast alone on childhood hunger. We're really here today to highlight summer hunger and some of the new USDA programs aimed at tackling just that. So we've spoken briefly about how school age kids really access two of their regular daily meals, breakfast and lunch, at.
And, you know, when school is out for the summer. This leaves many low income and vulnerable families cobbling together meals for children for three months out of the year. Data shows many families are unable to adequately replace school meals, leading to a rise in childhood hunger in the summer.
From an educator's perspective, what is your experience with this?
[00:15:42] Speaker C: We're very fortunate at the elementary school that we're able to always provide the meals that are necessary, even if it's just a snack to get the kiddos through. We do have different partner agencies. We're a title one building, so we are very looped into our community as far as what resources are available to help families who may be struggling with food insecurity. School social worker on staff, the intervention specialists that are building are amazing. It's one of the reasons why that's going to be part of my education is to emulate the awesome work that these guys are doing to help families who are struggling with food insecurity to get linked into programs and benefits so that they can continue to get food on the table or start getting food on the table.
[00:16:39] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. And you were mentioning, you've talked very proudly, as you should, about your driveway garden that you have for not only your family, but also your neighborhood and your community. I'd love if you could share a little bit more about that and maybe how that connects to summertime hunger.
[00:17:02] Speaker C: Oh, gosh. So what started as a hobby garden just in the driveway turned into container gardening and then caught the attention of some local neighborhood kids.
Where we start from seeds most of the time and grow in a greenhouse, just a driveway greenhouse that we bought locally a few years ago, starting seeds and then throughout the summer started growing vegetables. Caught the attention of some kiddos in the neighborhood and some of the neighbors. And so at the O'Hara household during the summers, you can typically, if you're on a walk in the evening, one of us will run out and hand you a handful of tomatoes. Or we've. We've been so lucky. We've expanded to, we've got cherry tomatoes, watermelon, cucumbers, raspberries, blueberries.
We had radishes last year, cucumber. I think I already said the kiddos are really, really excited about watermelons and pumpkins this year.
So it's turned into a really cool, informal thing. And it's neat to show the littles in the neighborhood where their food is actually coming from, that they can eat the raspberries right off the bushes. And with that comes what happens when you eat too many raspberries right out of the garden. But those are all lessons, I guess we learn at some point, right?
[00:18:32] Speaker B: I love that. Yeah. And that's like, really.
I don't know. It's amazing because that's what community is all about and people helping one another, you know. So it's a special thing that you're able to do, for sure.
[00:18:53] Speaker D: We.
[00:18:54] Speaker C: I love it. The garden is such a good place to refocus in a world that's kind of chaotic right now and has been chaotic. But there are some very cool programs in the city also that have helped me develop the garden into something a little bigger. The community backyards program has allowed me to take a couple of courses to learn about the value of harvesting rainwater, where we've added two rain barrels to water our garden, added native plants to our landscape to help with water.
This year, in the fall, I'll be building a rain garden with the help of Franklin County Water and soil conservation Department, and then also with produce perks, which is the partnership where certain farmers markets and food establishments will, in the summertime, double your dollars if you're using a snap card to purchase fruits and vegetables and occasionally other grains and pantry staples.
Those dollars, up to $25 per day, will be matched with a complimentary $25 through a grant program. So you can go to any farmers market in central Ohio, use your Snap card and have your money doubled. Now, we've been able to save seeds and be able to recycle for some zucchini, some tomatoes from our produce perks, and also use our Snap card to buy fruit and berry bushes.
That's a kind of an unknown. Cool thing is that you can use your snap card to buy seeds for food, some medicinal plants, too. Echinacea is on the list. You can buy echinacea flower and you can also buy honey with your snap card and your snap benefits. So a lot of recycling benefits into kind of what we're all doing, just trying to build a firmer foundation for later. Less. Less build than grow.
[00:21:06] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.
And some of these programs help increase the benefit adequacy or the adequacy of some of these benefits, which ultimately then helps families to get the food that they need and they prefer and may not necessarily always be able to afford without, you know, the doubling of the dollars and purchasing seeds and growing year by year. So that's awesome. And we'll make sure to put all those resources in the notes for the episodes that folks can go back and research on their own and hopefully start their own driveway garden. So I love that.
[00:22:00] Speaker C: It's amazing. And if there's such a good sense of self sufficiency and pride that comes with being able to know that you, a little bit at a time, are building or growing your way into self sufficiency, it's a really neat concept.
[00:22:16] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Definitely a proud moment, I'm sure.
Yes.
[00:22:21] Speaker C: And the Sunbucks program this summer, I'm sure that everyone has felt the pinch at the grocery store, regardless of income, regardless of any socioeconomic status. It's bananas. Not just the fruit, but it is bananas at the grocery store right now. And so I think that a lot of families in central Ohio or in the state of Ohio probably are really grateful for the, for the start of the Sunbucks program, to be able to make it a little easier to have those trips to the grocery store with families when I think that prices make it prohibitive to.
For everyone.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah, let's get into that. You know, I wanted to start off by saying that the new USDA Stumbucks program is the first federal, new federal nutrition program entitlement program in nearly 50 years. This is a really big deal to level set sunbucks, or summer EBT as some people call it, kicked off this summer with over two thirds of states and territories participating. The program provides low income families with school age kids, $120 per kid, and EBT benefits to be used at SNAP authorized retailers to purchase food and help bridge the gap in meal access when children are out of school.
You know, this is a program that kind of like what Jalara was talking about previously. This is one of the really good things that came out of the pandemic. This was originally a pandemic era program that Congress actually made permanent. So we're really excited about this. This is the first summer that it's rolling out as a permanent program.
And I think benefits are slowly starting to get out the door for families. So I know that this is a program that your family is eligible for. Have you received your benefits yet, and what do you think of the program? Or, you know, like, what do you plan on using the benefits for?
[00:24:54] Speaker C: So we did. We finally received ours today, which is great. I know that it's a huge relief for a lot of families. Social media. I have been watching kind of the other families in the neighborhood and locally who have also received theirs, and it provides relief.
It's a relief.
I love that it's per child in the household. So I know that some of our multi child households are going to be very relieved to have that benefit arrive and be able to put a good amount of food and pantry staples and other things on their tables today.
For us, I think that we are going to invest a portion of it is kind of, these were dollars that we were not expecting to add to our food budget this year.
Very grateful for it. And we're going to use ours half in produce perks and half as a garden investment, probably, and then also probably try to stock up on some, on some more long term frozen items so that we, you know, extend our just extended as much as we can take advantage of it.
I'm looking forward to next year when schools are better able to communicate before school is out so that the families know what to expect, especially our families, families with language barriers to know that.
To know that this is coming and kind of be in a lifeline right now. It's amazing.
[00:26:35] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure.
I'd be curious to know. I know that, like, I mean, the food banks recognize that, you know, this is definitely a relief. And folks really need this. $120 per kid. Do you think that that's adequate to feed a child?
You know, the two meals a day that they would receive in school? Do you think that is an adequate amount or what are, what are you feeling in terms of the benefit?
[00:27:11] Speaker C: It's a start. It's a start. It's a step in the right direction.
Breaking down financially, what it would come to.
Of course, it is a welcome benefit. Of course it is appreciated.
Breaking it down. $120 to replace, let's see, two meals in the day, five days a week for three months.
If you look at what it would cost per meal, $40 a month, I think that that is probably maybe a very conservative week's worth of groceries. Probably per person. Very, very conservative. So while it is, while I'm sure that people are grateful, I'm sure that it's a good start. We've got some room to move toward more only because it's very difficult to stretch you, to be very creative to stretch that amount. And the families that are hit the hardest, I think, by the prices in the grocery store or by struggling in the economy to make all the things worse.
Grateful addition, great start, room to grow, probably.
And we'll just, hopefully the rollout has been successful and we'll see this again next year.
[00:28:47] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah. No, that's a great answer. And, you know, I think what we love about summer EBT or some box is that, you know, families are actually able to go to the grocery store and shop for what they and their kids would prefer and need. And so that's like, what the, what a really great benefit of this program is.
Also wanted to share, and I know that we talked about this a little bit before, is that, you know, the summer food sites all across the state that kids can go to and have a meal, there's even some non congregate options and some rural areas that our next guest will be talking about.
But those are things that can be used in conjunction with summer EDT. It's not an either or. And I think that will hopefully help a little bit with some of the squeeze as well, that there's multiple options. But, yeah, I think really the benefit is that summer EBT is you're able to shop at the grocery store, and that gives families a lot of dignity and choice in what they can purchase for themselves.
[00:30:16] Speaker C: It is. It's a very different feeling to have that autonomy and to have that, um. To have that dignity, especially for kids, I think. Yeah, I think at my level, kiddos are not, you know, where I am at during the day for my work day. I don't think it's as. I don't think it's as prevalent or as apparent as maybe with the older kiddos.
But, yeah, to have that autonomy and to feel that self sufficiency building for what, you know, stretching and making what, being resilient, all of the things that come with that pride, to be supported in that way is crucial, I think, because we. We truly are right now. It's precarious, I think, for everyone.
Horrifying as it may sound, we're all just a couple of really bad weeks away from dire circumstances.
As long as we continue to build and respect one another and grow, I think that the better off we're going to be in the long run.
[00:31:17] Speaker B: Yeah, that's an amazing point.
I wanted to mention, you know, as we're closing out that benefits for Ohio's summer EDT program continue to be released daily for approximately 840,000 school children. That's amazing and huge and will be an amazing benefit for families.
To learn more about Ohio summer EBT, including eligibility information, translated outreach materials, and how to use the benefits, head over to ohiosummerebt.org, which will also be in the notes for the episode. I wanted to thank you again, Jalora, for being here today with us. And, you know, I really appreciate all the time we've gotten to spend with you over the year and appreciate you, you know, just sharing your experience and your expertise with us to really raise awareness and make change. Is there anything else you would like to leave our listeners with? I know that, like, your last point was, like, mic drop moment, but I'd love to hear if there's any.
[00:32:37] Speaker C: Love that going for the dramatic effect. No, just thank you so much for having me and for continuing to include me in these efforts to bring us all up to speed, to grow as a community, grow as people grow, these kiddos, for these bright futures that they all have ahead of us. And I just really appreciate this. Thank you for the good work that you do and let me be part of it.
[00:32:59] Speaker B: Yes, yes. Thank you so much.
[00:33:10] Speaker E: Hello and welcome to our second guest, Chrissy Musser, who is the food service director at Meigs local schools in Meigs county. She has been operating her food service program there for 13 years. So, Christy, can you share a little bit more background about yourself, what you like to do in the summer and about your program and why you love summer and serving food in the summer.
[00:33:40] Speaker D: Well, that's a lot of questions you just asked right there, but thank you for having me on this morning. I do appreciate that.
Like you had mentioned, I've been here for 13 years.
We've been doing some kind of summer food program, not necessarily the SFSP program, but we've been doing some kind of summer program for twelve of my 13 years here, which to the best of my knowledge, prior to me coming on, I don't think they had ever done any kind of summer, official summer feeding program. So if you'll remember, we started doing the summer rural delivery meals, which was through the Ohio association of Food Banks. We started with that and did that for several years. And then since it's gone to the not to the non congregate, that's completely changed everything. But as far as, you know, what I like to do in the summer, I'd love to be where your backdrop is. But most of the time we are just working and rolling out meals during the summertime because we just have such a huge need in our area, not just in Meigs county, but we've got, you know, we normally see no less than five different counties represented at our distributions. So there's a, there's a massive need and no one was filling it. So we tried to jump in there.
[00:35:11] Speaker E: Thanks for that background. Yeah, sure. We've worked together. It's been twelve years. So you were the first, one of the first sponsors for the rural pilot was basically a pilot based on a USDA program to have food delivered or for people to pick up food at a central location. So through that pilot, the program became permanent through USDA. So, Chrissy, you kind of helped pave the way for that. And all of us that way back when started to test those new innovative ways to get food to kids in the summer. So we appreciate that. So can you tell us a little bit more of what you changes you've noticed over the past 13 years? Are you serving more kids now as opposed to twelve years ago?
What have you seen and how things changed over the years?
[00:36:07] Speaker D: Well, if we're speaking specifically about, for example, the SFSP, which I've done the summer food service program through Ode, I've done that for about seven years now.
You know, we operated during the COVID during the COVID years, which was, which was a little crazy, but in a normal, in a normal non wavered, you know, nothing special going on during a normal summer, you know, we would, at any distribution, we would normally have, like, nine different sites throughout our county.
And of course, kids had to eat on site. And I would be doing good to maybe muster up 25 kids, maybe. So if I did 3000 meals in a month, that was a big deal.
Since it's gone to the, to the rural non congregate.
For example, in yesterday's distribution, we gave out 22,000 meals.
[00:37:11] Speaker E: Wow.
[00:37:12] Speaker D: So it has been massive. And I'm going to be honest, I have written letters to my state representatives, I've written letters to Ode, I've written letters to the USDA about, if you really want to target child hunger, and especially in these rural areas, you've got to change how you deliver it. I mean, you can't make kids drive 20 miles to a site, expect the parents to sit there with them while they eat for, you know, for 30 minutes, and then get up and leave because it doesn't, it doesn't work. It doesn't happen. So finally, someone was listening somewhere, and this has just been huge. It's been an absolute godsend.
[00:37:59] Speaker E: Great. That's great information to learn about how this new program is helping kids. Can you kind of talk a little bit about, like what? Like, how are you serving the food? Are kids getting hot food, cold food? How is that all working for you?
[00:38:16] Speaker D: Yeah, all of our, so we do.
Let me back this up. I've got six different sites, okay?
Four of them are at libraries, and they only get a single day's worth of food there. So that food that we take to them is hot because it's only a single day. And it's, you know, they come since it's through the library, they come for a reading program, and most of them are eating there anyway. So those four sites are hot, but they do very small numbers. Now, our one, our big one at Meigs elementary, which we did 22,000 meals yesterday, that is a combination of shelf stable food. And then we try to make at least half of the meals, like frozen tv style dinners where we've prepped the meal, and all they have to do is take the lid off and pop the little tray in an air fryer or an oven.
And we make out of those seven, seven breakfasts and lunches. At least half of them are going to be in that tv, tv dinner type style because it's been popular. People want to eat it.
So that's what we have been doing, and it's worked well for us.
[00:39:33] Speaker E: So do you get those frozen meals through a vendor? Are you prepping those or how is that working?
[00:39:39] Speaker D: No, we prep those.
[00:39:40] Speaker E: Oh, really?
[00:39:41] Speaker D: Yes, we do. I can. I've got pictures. I can. I can share. I can. I can send to you. We use our entire elementary cafeteria, which is a very large area. We also use an attached adjacent gym.
And we just make long rows of tables and one row does one meal. It's. It's one, you know, one row of tables per meal. And then we just do.
We just knock them out. It's about.
So yesterday, out of yesterday's 22,000 meals, roughly 12,000 of those were handmade tv dinners every week.
[00:40:28] Speaker E: So how many, like, how has this helped your employees? I assume you've been able to hire more statistics.
[00:40:35] Speaker D: Yeah, I have. We've got. It takes no less than 50. They're seasonal, you know, just seasonal workers, but it takes no less than 50 to pull it all together and make it happen.
Actually, if I can get closer to 60, it makes it a little bit easier. But as the summer wears on, you know, even though we're doing this for the best of reasons, you know, people need to take breaks and our numbers tend to, our staff numbers tended to dwindle.
But we, you know, it normally takes about 50 of us to make that happen. And we pack for two days. You know, for example, for us, we pack on a. Make meals Mondays and Tuesdays and then pack them into our frozen bags, which go to our walk in freezer. And then on Wednesdays we distribute everything.
So it's worked well for us.
[00:41:31] Speaker C: Good.
[00:41:33] Speaker E: I'm glad to see you're getting all these meals out. This is awesome. So addition to, I wanted to kind of talk a little bit about the Sunbucks and or the summer EBT benefits that USDA has also started this summer. Have you had, have you heard anything from the parents or kids about that program, good or bad? Have the kids gotten their money?
[00:42:01] Speaker D: We have very good feedback from our, you know, from our community participants.
Most of the people that come through our distribution are also eligible for the summer EBT program.
As far as this summer goes, I haven't heard a lot of people saying that they had gotten their benefits yet. In fact, I've had a couple of people reach out to me directly asking when those benefits should arrive. But I haven't heard a lot yet that they've started receiving them, but I'm sure they will. But yes, it's been.
I get lots of comments that it.
Because I believe some of them have had their SNaP benefits cut in the past year, from what I understand. So the summer EBT has really helped supplement those losses that they've seen.
[00:42:57] Speaker E: Thanks to that, I wanted to get into a little bit more about your operation and, like, the day to day part. So you already told about how your sites work. So how did you work on, like, developing the menu? I mean, it seems like, you know, you didn't know how many kids you were going to be serving and like, you know, how did you, how did this all kind of come together?
[00:43:25] Speaker D: So I mentioned earlier that we had done when Covid, you know, when we had all of that craziness going on and the USDA had issued all these waivers where we could do programs similar to the rural non congregate. We had already put a program in place where we had worked out all of those bugs. And so when this came around, we kind of knew, you know, what kind of foods that people liked and things like that. But, you know, back during that time, you know, for the first couple of weeks, it was, it was just kind of a toss up, you know, trying to find, number one, I have to find, you know, foods that people like. That is within our budget. You know, I have to, I have to try and keep our, our food budget within about a 40% food cost rate.
And if there's no commodity dollars there, you can quickly meet or exceed that 40%.
And then I also have to look at, is the food packable? If it's something that's really liquidy, it's probably not going to work because it may potentially, you know, leak out as we're distributing. So those are, those are all kind of factors that I have to take into account, but we've, we've found, for example, I've got a five week rotating menu of, of some of the favorites. And then we, you know, we, we went the first half of the summer and then we just repeated that cycle.
[00:45:04] Speaker E: Again, you mentioned about your budget. So is the reimbursement enough to cover all your costs for summer? I know that has always been kind of a big barrier, at least for the traditional sites because they haven't been reimbursed enough to cover all their expenses.
[00:45:23] Speaker D: Okay, so when we were doing the traditional, you know, congregate setting where kids had to come and eat, absolutely not. It was, you know, I went and I took a loss every summer since we have, you know, switched over to the non congregate because our volume is so high. Yes, it is. It is covering all of our expenses. So, yeah, I, so do you do.
[00:45:55] Speaker E: Any, like, bulk items? I know I've heard about the milk sometimes is too much milk for the families to take at once any feedback on those type of concerns.
[00:46:09] Speaker D: So Elizabeth Douglas from Ode came and did a visit with us a couple of weeks ago, and she brought up some of these questions as well.
So what we do in terms of offer versus server or the bulk item we do, milk is the only bulk item that we do.
And our experience last summer, which was the first summer doing the non congregate, is a lot of our participants did not want to take all the milk that they were required to have. Since we do seven days at a time, they're required to take one gallon of milk per child, which can quickly fill up someone's refrigerator.
So when we were doing this year's plans, you know, Miss Douglas had mentioned that bulk items we can do an offer versus serve. So we chose to do that just with our milk.
But oddly enough, most of the participants this year do take the milk. I mean, we always ask them, would you like, you know, if they've got three kids, would you like milk for all of your children, or how many would you like?
Most of them are taking all of it. Anyway, the second part of that question is, Elizabeth Douglas had asked, you know, were there other bulk items that we could do to allow parents or to allow families to opt out of a, you know, in terms of offer versus serve, to opt out of something if they didn't want it?
And that one I haven't found an easy answer to. For us, the only thing that we could really do is that milk, to do bulk on something else, I think would be difficult for us. So that was a long answer to say, no, we do. The only thing we do is bulk milk.
[00:48:09] Speaker E: I know that there is a, as an allowance to deliver meals. Are you doing any of that this year?
[00:48:20] Speaker D: We did deliver meals during COVID and we saw a lot of need during that time for that.
When I started writing this summer's plans, I initially did have home delivery written into it, but then ultimately I changed my mind this summer because we're still trying to work out the bugs for our program to make sure that we've. To make sure we're running as seamlessly as we possibly can, which I think we probably are now. So, no, I didn't do any home delivery this summer. I think it's something that I will probably look into next summer.
But I will say, I will say it's kind of a small community, and we kind of, you know, because I've been feeding people during the summer for so long, I have a good idea of the families that need that home delivery and what they've, you know, I've had private discussions with them and what they've done is they've given written permission for other adults to pick up their food for them. So that's, that's what's worked for, for us this summer.
[00:49:27] Speaker E: Okay, I have one last question. We often talk about different demographics, how they respond to public assistance and public assistance programs differently. For example, here in the urban area of Columbus communities, there's not nearly as much stigma or negative sentiment around utilizing public benefits free through programs. Is that your experience in Meigs county?
What is the community reaction been to not only this program, but the summer EBT programs?
[00:50:04] Speaker D: So I think this has been a personal crusade of mine to take away that stigma.
We have been a community eligibility provision school, which I'm sure you're familiar with, where we get free lunch.
We have been a CEP district for the past twelve years, which has been, it has been night and day and taking away that stigma. So as we've added programs like the summer EBT and the rural non congregate foods, I think people, there's much less of that stigma out there. You know, I actively advertise that anyone can come in, can come and pick up our food, which they're eligible to because we are a CEP school, school district. So anyone in the area is eligible to pick up, and that's how I advertise it.
You know, something that I've seen and I can speak personally.
You know, all my kids are grown now, but, you know, when we first started, for example, doing the pilot summer programs, my kids were small, my husband didn't have the best job, and we didn't get, you know, any kind of assistance, but we were, I called myself the working poor.
You know, I definitely could have benefited from, from a program like this. So something that I've seen is a lot of our, a lot of our community has a lot of resources there through, through snap and different programs.
But I'm trying to also reach those families that I know need a little bit of extra help, but they don't, they aren't necessarily getting that kind of official assistance from the state or community, if that makes sense, because there's, you've really got kind of two.
That that need is bigger than just those kids that are getting free and reduced lunch, I guess, is what I'm saying.
[00:52:18] Speaker E: Right. The people that are on the edge, the people exactly don't quite qualify, but, you know, if the car breaks down or something happens, they're going to.
[00:52:28] Speaker D: Exactly. Absolutely. And we actively. Which. And that encompasses basically our whole county. So I actively, you know, circling back to your question about stigma, we actively, as a district, do our best to include everyone. So that stigma isn't even a question anymore. It's not there.
[00:52:54] Speaker E: That's awesome. Thanks for sharing that. So do you have any other comments or suggestions?
Any ways that you could improve the program if you have the power to wave that magic wand?
[00:53:07] Speaker D: Well, the only thing I had been asking for all of these years was to allow parents to pick up food for their children and take it home. And since they've done that, I mean, I think the numbers are proof. You know, each one of our kids that comes through gets a bag. It's a big. It's a big bag filled with seven days full worth of breakfast lunches. So each kid gets one of these bags plus a gallon of milk. And we gave out 1698 of those bags yesterday in a little over 3 hours. I think it speaks for itself.
Yeah, there's a need for it. And that was my whole crusade, is just allow us to feed our kids the way they need fed because urban areas obviously have different needs and I wouldn't be able to speak to those, but I can speak to the world needs.
[00:54:14] Speaker E: Well, thanks for sharing that. And I think that's a wrap for today. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us and share everything about your wonderful program going on there in Meigs county and hope that you get a little chance to rest before the school year starts and have a great rest of your summer.
[00:54:36] Speaker D: Well, thank you. And I also want to invite, if you're ever down in our neck of the woods, please, please stop and see one of our distributions.
[00:54:52] Speaker A: So I want to again extend a thank you to both our guests today and thanks everyone for listening and hoping that you all enjoy your summer and that if you have a chance to get out there and maybe volunteer at a summer food service site just to see what good things are going on out there in Ohio. So until the next show, we wish everyone a safe and happy summer.
