KINGWOOD — As the summer food program for children begins in Preston County, the county board of education said it hopes for more variety in the food.
On a 4-1 vote, the board approved a bid of $23.50 per unit for the meal boxes from Kilmer’s Farm Market of Inwood. Two vendors bid on the contract.
The first summer food distribution will be Wednesday. Parents can sign up on the board’s website for future deliveries. Any child under 18 is eligible for the free meals. Assistant Superintendent Brad Martin said 1,357 signed up for the first distribution.
“That is far more than we typically would feed in our summer feeding program,” Superintendent Steve Wotring said.
Each week each child will receive a box with 10 meals, enough for two meals a day for five days.
Board Member Jeff Zigray, who cast the nay vote, has been volunteering with the meal preparation and delivery since it began in March. Too many apples, too many peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and no variety, he said Monday.
Wotring said vendors were caught unawares when students were sent home March 13 and all school meals became by delivery. “They try to order stuff, and everybody tries to order the same thing, and they can’t get it,” he said of vendors.
The state tried to arrange for all counties to go through a single vendor, which quickly became overrun with orders and had to limit the number of counties it served, he noted.
Getting packaged food was a national problem, Wotring said, and the county has been promised more variety this summer.
Preston Schools Child Nutrition Director Dylan Bietz requested different menus for the summer, Wotring said.
One thing children will not receive is milk. The USDA, which oversees the program, granted Preston a waiver on providing milk because of concerns about keeping it fresh during delivery in the heat of summer.
Martin said one of the meal boxes he looked at today included a variety of fruit, juice, yogurt, muffins, pepperoni rolls, turkey sandwiches, and ham and cheese sandwiches.
Board President Jack Keim said if the board did not approve the bid, there would be no summer food program. But, Board Member Pam Feathers said, we need to keep an eye on this.
TWEET@DominionPostWV
