Food Podcast: In-person learning changes school food programs before summer

Rewind to one year ago. Every school in Western Pennsylvania had to switch to remote learning. Overnight, the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank’s child nutrition team had to find a way to ensure kids who relied on school meal programs still had food while learning from home.

“Last spring, food service directors and their staff and many volunteers and teachers mobilized because they knew the kids would continue to rely on them,” said Karen Dreyer, the food bank’s director of child nutrition programs. “They immediately shifted their models so they could do grab-and-go meals.”

In the past, the USDA did not allow for grab-and-go meals for children, enforcing programs where students would sit down to eat. When the pandemic hit, the USDA waived the rule. Dreyer said a year later, grab-and-go has proven to be a helpful option.

“It allowed parents and guardians to come pick up the meals so the kids didn’t have to be there,” Dreyer said. “It was efficient because if a parent had multiple kids at multiple schools, they could go to a single school in many cases and get all the meals they needed for their kids.”

Dreyer said this has been a great option for families who live in rural areas and working parents who have to travel only once every few days to pick up food as opposed to making the trip every day. Food bank partners and sponsors distributed more meals to children in rural counties this past year than before. In Butler County alone, there was a more than 3,500% increase in meals distributed to children between 2019 and 2020.

Unlike last year, many schools have chosen to do some sort of hybrid learning, with several making the move to go in person full time in the last stretch of the school year.

The food bank continues to work with 32 active grab-and-go sites and is seeing attendance increase in after-school programs as more children resume in-person learning.

Dreyer said the next step is looking ahead to summer.

In a few weeks, the food podcast will talk more about summer youth cafes. These cafes can be found throughout the food bank’s 11-county service area and are free to anyone 18 and under.

The food bank also hosted a virtual summer meals matter summit to address concerns with childhood food access this summer. Segments are available on the food bank’s YouTube page.

Listen: In-person learning changes school food programs