Paula Merritt / The Meridian StarLondon Hale, left, Landy Pickens and other children enjoy eating lunch at Magnolia Middle School. The school is part of the Summer Food Service Program which serves families during the off-months of school.

For Teyes Eades, bringing her grandchildren to enjoy the meals of the area’s Summer Food Service Program strikes a couple of affirmative chords. One of them relates to physical nutrition, and the other to something a little harder to define.

Part of it has to do with the way she relates to staff members.

“I talk to them every day,” Eades said, as she and a group of children prepared to feast on a lunch at Magnolia Middle School, one of the sites for the summer program. “If I see them at breakfast, they’ll say, ‘Make sure you come back for lunch.’”

That’s the sort of connection the organizers of the program — at local and state levels — want to cultivate. Louise McPhee said one of the prime advantages of the Summer Food Service Program is the way it brings children into contact with familiar staff members — staff members students have encountered, have bantered with, and confided in during the school year.

“These are people they know and they trust,” said McPhee, director of child nutrition for the Meridian Public School District. The school district works with the Mississippi Department of Education to sponsor the program locally.

The Summer Food Service Program, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is administered by the Mississippi Department of Education with area sponsorship from school districts and various nonprofit organizations throughout the state. It’s existed for decades in Mississippi and in the country at large. Participation is also growing at the state and local levels, according to organizers. At sites sponsored by the Meridian Public School District, the average number of lunches served per day through June 19 of this summer is 1,175 — up from 1,036 last summer. Breakfasts have climbed to a daily average of 1,026 so far this year, up from 875 last summer. Those figures come from Aileen Semmes, food service specialist at the Meridian Public School District.

Scott Clements, state director of child nutrition programs for the Mississippi Department of Education, said the state has experienced a 5 to 10 percent growth in participation each year for the last three years. He said he expects that “somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.5 million lunches” will be served this year, along with about 900,000 breakfasts and 150,000 snacks.

In a time when federal cuts loom over many programs, Clements said this one harbors a particularly solid track record.

“It’s a program that has proven its need over the years and is well-supported by the USDA,” Clements said.

Like McPhee, Clements stressed the importance of familiar, supportive people serving food to children and their families.

“It’s a more welcoming environment when it’s a place they know and when it’s people they know,” Clements said.

Sites are eligible to serve the meals if they qualify as schools with at least 50 percent of the student population eligible for free and reduced lunch, Clements explained. If the sights are not schools, they’re still eligible so long as the closest school meets that criterion. Children 18 and under eat the meals for free, and in this area adults may buy meals for a small fee. Clements said the policy for adults varies throughout the state.

Clements said the meals include fruits, vegetables, milk, bread that’s usually whole-grain and a protein item. McPhee noted selections such as hot wings, chicken and rice, combinations of fruits and vegetables and salads filling out that framework in this area.

And she stressed the emotional component of the whole experience.

“Parents know that they’re going to someplace that’s safe,” McPhee said. “They recognize the school as being a safe zone.”

FINDING A MEAL

Local summer food service program sites: 

The Meridian Public School District sponsors Summer Food Service Program sites at Magnolia Middle School, Meridian High School, Northwest Middle School, T. J. Harris Lower Elementary School, Barbara Henson Swim Gym, Camp Eagle Ridge, Dreams Come True Childcare Center, Great Start Learning Center, Nino Creative Learning Childcare Center, Children First and Poplar Springs Drive United Methodist Church. Meridian Community College also served meals at its College for Kids program earlier this month, and Camp Eagle Ridge served meals earlier in the month, as well.

Meals are provided most weekdays through July 21, but no meals will be served on July 3 or July 4. Breakfasts run from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. at the school sites, and lunches go from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Times for the other locations are listed on the school district’s website. A complete list of Meridian-area sites, with times and addresses, can be found on the Meridian Public School District’s website at www.mpsdk12.net/ through a link under “district news” on the right side of the page.

For sites outside of the Meridian area, including a site at Springhill Missionary Baptist Church in Kewanee, people can check the Mississippi Department of Education’s website at www.fns.usda.gov/summerfoodrocks.

Yolanda Watts, assistant manager of food services at Magnolia Middle School, said it’s easy to tell when an adult has made a kind impression on a child.

“I see kids growing up and graduating and they’ll say, ‘Hey, that’s the cafeteria lady,’” she said. “That just warms your heart.”

Several area organizations make use of the meals program, with staff members bringing children to meal sites in the midst of activities. In some cases, the meals fit right in with those activities.

Brandon Elkins works with children at the Velma Young Community Center — part of the Boys & Girls Clubs of East Mississippi — and he noted a program called “Healthy Habits” that he helps to introduce to the children. He was with a group of children at a recent summer lunch at Magnolia Middle School.

“We do exercise, and we talk about fruits and vegetable,” Elkins said. “We also talk about our hygiene, our dental (habits), our bodies — everything.”

Bringing children to a place where they can eat a nutritious meal, Elkins explained, can inject some real-life experience into the concepts children learn during Boys & Girls Club activities. Adrian Cole, who works with Elkins at the Center, described the importance of children’s eating habits to their energy and alertness as they participate in activities.

“We always tell them, have something on your stomach,” Cole said.

Children who came to a recent lunch at Magnolia Middle School joked and laughed with each other as they chatted between bites. Jennifer Simmons, 10, was among those children, though she turned pensive as she thought about the importance of the meals program.

“It tastes good, and it’s very nice for the community and for people who don’t have much food,” said Jennifer, who was part of a group of children from The School Aged Care program of Naval Air Station Meridian.

Camesha Creer, food service manager for Meridian Middle School, noted the importance of the meals for the children and families who partake, as well as for the people who are employed to provide the meals in the summer.

“We’re really grateful, especially for big organizations like the Boys & Girls Club who come out and support (the program),” she said. “Without it, we wouldn’t be here.”

McPhee said the Meridian Public School District has used social media — specifically the district’s Facebook page — to promote the lunches, as well as phone alerts to parents and other outreach efforts. She said, too, that there’s still room at the sites for more people to come and partake in summer meals.