People line up in front of the Alachua County Public Schools On Point Food Truck in Gainesville for the Summer BreakSpot Program.
The Alachua County School Board and Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services began serving free, nutritious meals and activities to children in need through the statewide Summer BreakSpot Program Monday.
Caron Rowe, the marketing and promotions specialist for the Alachua County School Board, said several libraries, Boys and Girls Clubs and UF Health Clinic sites have joined the program to keep up with an increase in demand.
“There are families coming into (the sites), and they’re hungry,” Rowe said. “They have siblings with them, and they didn’t have anything for them there previously.”
Some of the participating sites offer recreation-based activities and others offer education-based programs, Rowe said.
The Star Center Children’s Theatre on Northeast 23rd Avenue is entering its fourth year participating in the program, said founder and director Rhonda Wilson.
Activities offered include musical theater and dancing. Wilson said the activities allow the students to express themselves and perhaps even allows them to escape whatever troubles exist outside of the program.
“Life can be a play in the sense that it has ups and downs,” Wilson said. “There’s drama, there’s happiness, and if you look at it that way, then you realize that it’s not too far off from what you do on-stage.”
She said the effects are profound on the approximately 30 students who attend.
“Some of the kids in our program don’t have lunches or breakfast,” Wilson said. “Here, they have a chance to eat every day.”
The lunches students get are similar to those offered during the normal school year, including pizza, corndogs, French fries and chocolate milk.
“From what I see, some of our kids definitely do need (the lunches),” Wilson said. “From the way they eat it, they either really love it or they need it.”
As Wilson spoke, the buzz of adolescents laughing and screaming could be heard from behind a large, black curtain. Somebody was confessing a celebrity crush on Ariana Grande during a game of truth or dare.
Niyin Smith, an 18-year-old acting instructor at the theater, said one of the most challenging parts of the job is breaking through to the children.
“The first day when they came here, some of them weren’t talking or interacting with one another,” Smith said. “But now they’re all singing and dancing and having fun together, and I love it.”
Rowe said the program has become increasingly popular and 17 more locations will open this year.
Rowe said that Alachua County has been participating in the program for at least 22 years and is part of a national campaign – the Summer Food Service Program – that launched in 1968.
She said site attendance locally had increased 20 percent for breakfast and 18 percent for lunch last year. Over 110,000 meals were served last summer. The total number of sites has jumped from 63 to 80 within a year.
“It’s hard to predict how many we will serve this summer,” Rowe said.
Rowe said that a food truck initiative was also started last year to provide meals to those in remote areas of Alachua County without transportation.
Rowe said the food truck will be traveling on a Monday to Thursday routine from June 5 to July 26. Its locations will be listed on the Alachua County website.
According to a press release by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, children who are members of households receiving assistance for food insecurity are automatically eligible to receive meals at eligible sites.
Rowe said at almost all locations, there is no enrollment needed to participate in Summer BreakSpot.
The only exception to this may be found in a few sites, such as overnight camps, in which parents may be required to fill out a form about family income for their children to receive meals, according to Summer BreakSpot’s website.
The program has increased the number of meals served from 11 million to over 15 million statewide since the department took over the program in 2012, said Kinley Tuten, spokesperson for FDACS.
“The goal of the program is to bridge the nutritional gap that many kids face during the summer months,” Tuten said. “Kids who rely on school meals for their nutrition really benefit from this.”
Tuten said that providing sites are reimbursed on an individual basis by the department. She was unable to provide exact costs or estimated costs for the program, which lasts until July 27.
“Ultimately, we are looking to help as many children as we are able to,” Tuten said. “I grew up in Florida and have always been interested in being involved in helping those close to home."
