We know that
school closures can have a huge impact on the health and well-being of our
students. In our district, 68% of our students — about 10,494 children —
qualify for free and/or reduced-priced meals.
With the
success of our meal distribution sites, Citrus Schools is expanding our reach
to families by adding meal sites at more schools and now on school bus routes
as well.
Starting
Monday, March 30th, Citrus Schools will continue to ensure that
students have accessibility to nutritious meals. Our Food and Nutrition Services
Department has identified four additional locations to our already successful
seven locations to provide meals - breakfast and lunch - at no cost to all school-aged
children.
Each location
will resume serving food to school-aged children on Monday, March 30th, at
10 a.m. and remain open until 1 p.m. daily. We encourage parents and caregivers
to drive to our school site locations. You
can find a list of these sites by visiting https://bit.ly/2UjBT2M.
With the
success of our school distribution sites, we will also be starting our school
bus routes with our food service employees who will be distributing food
directly from our school buses. This distribution will start at 10 a.m. and end
at 1 p.m. daily. We will have 35 routes staged at strategic locations
throughout the county. You can find a
list of these sites by visiting https://bit.ly/2QN4co4.
District employees will be handing out
meals to families who are at the designated bus stops.
Meals to be
handed out will consist of the recommended items per USDA guidelines.
Community Partnerships
We are so
fortunate in Citrus County to have partnerships with so many wonderful
non-profits in our community. We are
partnering with Citrus County Blessings, a local non-profit which provides weekend food bags to over 1500 students in
Citrus County who are faced with food insecurity at home. On Thursdays, a Blessings volunteer will be
distributing weekend meals to families they serve. If your child is enrolled in
the Blessings program and you would like to pick up their weekend bags at a bus
stop location, please call #352-341-7707 to ensure a bag is ready for your
child at a designated stop. You can also visit www.citruscountyblessings.org and
hit the “contact us” button. Families
should be prepared to show identification to receive meals.
Not only will
families get meals on our bus routes, they can also collect school
supplies. This is all thanks to the
wonderful volunteers at the Citrus County Education Foundation. Supplies such as notebooks, paper, crayons,
and pencils will be available for distribution if needed.
A special
thanks to several community partners who mobilized immediately to get the
Citrus County School District and the Citrus County Education Foundation up and
running with coolers to transport meals safely on our buses. Several of our partners also donated their
time, money and effort to make sure we had everything needed for our mobile
feeding sites to be ready to go on Monday, March 30th.
Special Thanks to our Community
Partners:
Duke Energy
Lowe’s
Walmart
DRC Sports
JJ and
Jennifer Grow
The
Brannen Family
Inverness
Kiwanis
Shane
Bryant
Citrus
County YMCA
Mike
& Tracey Hinde
Maggie
Lampasona