PORT CLINTON, Ohio — For two years, federal waivers have help feed school children across America with free meals.
But one local advocacy group is worried that people aren't fully aware of just how much the waivers ending in June will affect summer meals programs across Ohio.
Before the federal assistance, the Ottawa County Family Advocacy Center usually distributed 300 meals a week, totaling between 3,000 and 4,000 total during its free summer meals program.
With the additional funding from the federal free meals waivers, numbers jumped to 44,000 total meals in 2020 and then 88,000 meals in 2021.
Now, that waiver program is ending at the end of June for schools.
But for non-profits, they won't have access to that one month of funding at all.
So the Advocacy Center has started a fundraiser in hopes to raise a minimum of $100,000 to continue serving that larger number of kids across Ottawa County.
"We figured if we did about $10,000 a week, we could afford to be able to run the program, and that would be cut way back," said Annie Hild, summer lunch coordinator at the Ottawa County Family Advocacy Center. "That would be cutting back on the milk, that would be cutting back on a lot of the fresh foods and doing more prepackaged foods."
"Last year, our total cost to run the program was around $229,000, so $100,000 is what we can get by with doing. The more money we raise, the more food we can purchase for children," Ashley Walterbusch, volunteer and fundraising coordinator, said.
The $100,000 would also be about double the normal amount the advocacy center is usually able to collect through fundraising.
But the full amount won't need to be collected all at once. As long as they have the minimum of $10,000 a week by the beginning of June, they should be able to supply at least some relief for Ottawa County families this summer.
"So this is challenging every fundraising effort that we have. But we know this community and we know that people are not going to let kids go hungry," Walterbusch said. "So we're hoping with that behind us, we can reach our goal."
Click HERE to visit the summer meals donation page.