PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — Preparations are already underway for the school district’s final food distribution of the year.
On Thursday, December 17th the Palm Beach County school district will distribute a pantry style boxes of food for winter break.
Each box will contain more than two weeks of food including breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack items.
All children 18 years of age and younger (22 and younger for ESE) are eligible for the free meals. However, the district is encouraging everyone to take advantage of the pantry style box to meet the need in the community.
Students do not have to be enrolled in the Palm Beach County School District to receive the free winter meal box.
Monbleau says the district has served 10 million meals to students since the program started in March when schools were closed as the outbreak started to spread to South Florida.
About half of the meals have been distributed during the fall semester.
However, there is a recent decline in the number of students and families picking up the meals at the Palm Beach County distribution sites.
Monbleau believes some parents are facing transportation challenges and scheduling conflicts if their children are distance learning.
She’s hoping families can plan ahead for the final distribution of the semester.
"We do have a lot of food and our managers want to reach as many children as we can with these meals,” said Allison Monbleau, director of food service for the Palm Beach County School District. “We used to serve 170,000 students a day, but now we're only serving 100,000 a day. So it's really dropped, way down from what we can normally do during the school year because not all the kids are at school.”
Pick up a free box of fresh, colorful produce when you get grab-and-go meals for children at schools across the District every Thursday! 🍎🥒🍠 Find the full list of food distribution sites and times here: https://t.co/aXj57iUd1U pic.twitter.com/No4RLrd8jI
— PBCSD (@pbcsd) December 10, 2020
With winter break approaching, school leaders are also increasing awareness about the final food distribution of the year to ensure students have access to healthy meals while school is not in session.
The list of locations specifies the food distribution sites and the times of meal pick up.
The meal boxes will be distributed on a first come, first served basis, at all the grab-and-go locations through selected parent pick-up lines on Thursday, December 17, 2020.
The next distribution day will be Tuesday, January 5, 2021.
