COLUMBUS – One in five Ohio children does not have access to nutritious food and the coronavirus outbreak has impacted efforts to provide food for those who need it, including a city-wide program that offers children free meals and snacks at 185 locations throughout Central Ohio.
The pandemic has created challenges for “Go Lunch!” the largest free, summer meal program in Ohio, which served 420,000 meals during the summer of 2019 but faces logistical issues in 2020.
“What feels like a really big impact to me, because I live it every day, is the limited amount of kiddoes we can have in our camps and the limited number of kiddoes that can come to our camps because transportation is an issue,” said Amanda Wampler, Columbus Recreation and Parks Departments’ senior manager of development.
Last year, as many as 100 children could attend one of the programs camps but Wampler says that number has been limited to eight per camp this year because of distancing requirements.
Children can still pick up food at grab-and-go centers across the region, she said. Columbus Recreation and Parks, the program‘s largest sponsor, provides meal services at 45 locations. Find them online or by texting FOOD to 877-877.
The federal government estimates more than 11 million children in the United States lived in homes considered “food insecure” before the pandemic and now projects that number could jump to 18 million.
Columbus City Schools provides its food production facility and 15 refrigerated trucks to deliver 7,800 meals daily in Franklin County.
Program sponsors range large entities like the Columbus Metropolitan Libraries, Children’s Hunger Alliance, SON Ministries and WARM to small community centers, camps and churches,” said Julie Pruett Bishop, Project Manager for Columbus Recreation and Parks’ Youth and Family Nutrition Office.