Nearly 1,000 sites will offer meals to students out of school because of coronavirus

The U.S. Department of Agriculture granted waivers to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services on Saturday to allow schools, child care institutions and community organizations to provide meals during school closures related to the coronavirus outbreak.

The waivers allow the state Agriculture Department to provide school districts authority to open programs typically reserved for delivering meals to students during summer vacation.

The department activated its Summer BreakSpot website, where families can find free meals for children under 18 during the current coronavirus school closures. Those locations can be found here.

The following counties are offering meal programs this week: Alachua, Baker, Bradford, Broward, Calhoun, Citrus, Clay, Collier, Duval, Hamilton, Indian River, Jackson, Lafayette, Levy, Liberty, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach, Polk, Sumter, Suwannee, and Union.

These counties will offer meals next week: Baker, Bay, Bradford, Brevard, Charlotte, Columbia, Duval, Flagler, Franklin, Gadsden, Gilchrist, Gulf, Hamilton, Hardee, Hendry, Highlands, Hillsborough, Leon, Madison, Manatee, Marion, Martin, Nassau, Okaloosa, Okeechobee, Orange, Osceola, Pasco, Pinellas, Sarasota, Seminole, St. Johns, St. Lucie, Sumter, Suwannee, Union, Volusia, Walton, and Washington.

As of Sunday, there are 934 active BreakSpot sites statewide in the following counties: Alachua, Baker, Brevard, Broward, Charlotte, Clay, Collier, Miami-Dade, Duval, Franklin, Gilchrist, Hamilton, Hardee, Hillsborough, Lake, Lee, Leon, Levy, Liberty, Manatee, Marion, Osceola, Palm Beach, Pasco, Pinellas, Polk, St. Johns, St. Lucie, Santa Rosa, and Seminole.

The number of locations will steadily increase as Agriculture Department approves additional BreakSpot site applications.

The meals can be hot or grab-and-go style meals.

The waivers allow school districts, which usually utilize summer meal services and singular sites where they serve multiple children at once, to use flexibility in their delivery methods.

Because the purpose of school closures is to reduce human contact between individuals as much as possible, the waivers allow districts to develop innovative solutions that don’t include mass congregations of dining children.

Some of those methods include drive-thru meal pick-up, deliveries along school bus routes or single drop meal days where children can receive multiple days worth of meals all at once to limit exposure.

The program is important because, for some low-income students, school meals are often the only way they eat nutritional meals throughout the day.

“For millions of Florida’s children, school meals are the only meals they can count on. We’re working closely with school districts to ensure that students have access to healthy, nutritious meals while schools are closed due to COVID-19,” said Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried. “We thank the USDA for helping us provide schools with flexible options to make school meals available. We will leverage innovative solutions, relationships, and the dedication of Florida’s schools and non-profits to ensure no child goes hungry during this pandemic.”

In the 2018-19 school year, Florida’s schools served 286,734,316 school lunches, of which 245,782,422 were free or reduced lunches. Participating schools served 2,908,335 Florida students, of which 2,089,852 were students receiving free or reduced lunches. FDACS is the state agency that funds Florida’s school lunch program, through $1.3 billion in federal funding.

Individual school districts are tasked with developing and applying for programs in their district. Families should check with their local district to find out whether a program is available and how they can receive food if it’s needed.