Serving a need: Summer lunch programs offer meals for children, teenagers in Bellingham
Hunger does not end just because children are out of school for the summer.
Free meals are offered for children and teenagers throughout the season through local schools, churches and community organizations.
According to the Whatcom Community Foundation in a 2022 post, one in five people in the county is considered food insecure. In order to combat food insecurity for children during the summer when schools are closed, the USDA has a website that locates meal programs in the country. Questions can be referred to Bellingham Public Schools food services at 360-676-6504.
Here are some of the services available:
Bellingham Schools meal program
Bellingham Public Schools’ summer meals program is served for free at three schools: Birchwood Elementary School, Shuksan Middle School and Options High School.
“Like most things in schools, we don’t have the same level of service during the summertime as we do during the school year,” said Dana Smith, spokeswoman for Bellingham Public Schools. “But we have multiple family resource centers during the year where our family liaisons work. And so we have a cadre of employees who support families all over.”
Smith said that the family liaisons work at a smaller scale now that school is out, but there is a liaison at the Shuksan Middle School who can point families out to various resources including the summer food program.
“We have a scratch cooking food model for the most part. We don’t serve a lot of prepackaged things but a lot of our things are made at our central kitchen, which is located at the Northgate neighborhood,” she said. “So our central kitchen is located there so they do mass scratch cooking and mass food prep and then distribution of that food out to different sites.”
Birchwood Elementary and Shuksan Middle School offer breakfast and lunch while Options High School offers snacks from 10 to 10:30 a.m. The program will continue until Aug. 18 when the school year officially starts back up in the fall. Sign ups are not required.
Boys and Girls Club of Whatcom County
The Boys and Girls Club of Whatcom County runs a meal program at their Bellingham and Ferndale locations. This started on June 19 and will end Aug. 28.
Breakfast is offered at 8:30 a.m to 9 a.m. and lunch is served from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m, said Heather Powell, CEO of the Boys and Girls Club of Whatcom County.
Community members who are 5 to 18 years old that are not part of the club are welcome to join for lunch as long as they have their meal on the site.
“We don’t experience a lot of community drop ins for summer meals,” Powell said.
Free lunches for non-club members are only offered during the summer when school is out. Sign ups are not required.
Nooksack Valley School District
The Nooksack Valley School District mobile meal van will serve free lunches to people 18 years and younger. This program started July 12 and ends Aug. 17 and goes on Monday-Thursday, according to the NV School District website.
Mobile meal van schedule:
Sumas City Park: 11:20 to 11:40 a.m.
Nooksack City Park: 12:05 to 12:25 p.m.
Everson City Park: 12:40 to 1:00 p.m.
There are hot and cold entrees, which includes fruits, veggies, crackers and milk, the website said. No sign ups are required.
From July 31 to Aug. 17, the The NV High School, NV Middle School and the Nooksack, Sumas and Everson Elementary Schools will serve free breakfast and lunches Monday to Friday.
The schedule for those meals are listed on the NV School District website and no sign ups are required.
Bellingham Food Bank
Additional food support can be found at the Bellingham Food Bank located at 1824 Ellis St. The food bank offers free food to Bellingham residents through their free grocery program, drive through and home delivery service. There are no income, address or identification requirements, according to their website.
You do not need to sign up in advance and all questions can be directed to info@bellinghamfoodbank.org.
Bellingham Food Bank’s hours are from from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
If you know of a program connected to a school, church or civic organization that helps feed needy children during the summer and is not listed here, let us know and we will include it. Contact pbsanti@bellinghamherald.com.
