Local Program Offers Help For Families Who Rely on School Meals

The holiday season is generally a time for celebration, family, and giving.  For some Upper Valley families with school-age children, though, it also comes with an extra financial burden.  KTNA’s Phillip Manning has more:

Everyone knows that eating is essential to living.  Beyond what the human body needs to stay alive, however, nutrients and energy from food have an impact on how well our brains and bodies function.  This can be especially true for children, who expend a lot of energy in the process of growing.  Lisa Shelby, Principal of Talkeetna Elementary, says that students who have had enough to eat simply do better.

“We feel pretty lucky that kids are well fed, which means that…their brains are ready to learn.  Their blood sugar isn’t low.  It helps [them] stay awake–gives them that energy to keep moving and keep learning.”

For some families, paying for school meals can be a struggle.  The regular price for an elementary school student who eats both breakfast and lunch at school comes out to $4.55.  While that may not seem like all that much, it adds up over the course of 180 school days, and that’s just for one child.  There is help for lower-income families in the form of free and reduced price lunches.  That helps to ensure that all students get the food they need in order to learn and grow.  Principal Shelby says that just under half of Talkeetna Elementary’s students are on either free or reduced-price lunches.  That assistance isn’t available during times like the two-week winter break, however.  LuAnn Tysdale heads up the Upper Valley’s “Filling the Gap” program.  She says the time off from school can pose a financial burden in areas like Talkeetna and Trapper Creek.

“We’re kind of a summer-winter economy, here, and a lot of families are very marginal.  They live on the edge, so that time that their children are home from school can really make a difference on the familes’ food budget.”

To ease that burden on some families, Filling the Gap is collecting food and monetary donations.  LuAnne Tysdale says volunteers will then make boxes for families with school-age children who need help making up for school meals during the holidays.

“On the 19th, we get together at Montana Creek Baptist Church, and we pack the boxes full of the foods.  And then, on the 20th, we distribute them at Montana Creek Baptist Church.  We choose that day because the food bank also does their blessing on that day…We kind of try to coordinate so [families] make one trip.”

The free and reduced-price school meal program requires an application and proof of income.  LuAnn Tysdale says Filling the Gap takes a very simple approach to who gets boxes.

“There is no paperwork, here.  There are no income restrictions, here.  If you have a child who needs food, we will give it to you.”

Filling the Gap has grown over the last four years, and LuAnn Tysdale says she expects as many as forty-five boxes could be needed, and that there are always a couple of extras set aside just in case.  She says Filling the Gap is entirely locally supported, and relies on the local community to keep it going.

“It’s a community effort.  It doesn’t get state funding, federal funding, doesn’t go after grants.  This is a community project, and our community is more than able to take care of the people in our community.”

Filling the Gap has donation boxes at numerous locations, including Cubby’s, Nagley’s, and Talkeetna Elementary School.  There is also an account set up with Matanuska Valley Federal Credit Union for those wishing to donate money.  If the program gets enough support, LuAnn Tysdale says she would like to also provide food for children during the Spring Break holiday next year.