FINDLAY, Ohio — Summer meal programs are vital to make sure area children don't go hungry, which is why multiple groups in Hancock County are working to improve their programs.
During the school year, about 500 children a week per Hancock County rely on the Findlay YMCA's Feed-a-Child program.
In the summer of 2022, Findlay City Schools' lunch program averaged 50 meals per weekend for students up to 17 years old, but would sometimes jump up as high as 100 needed.
"The summer lunch program is filling the gap," Carah Alvarez, a lunch monitor at Donnell Middle School, said. "It's not necessarily providing the essentials every day, all the time. It's saying, 'Hey, we're here to help. Let's do that for you.'"
So far, the summer lunch program has been held in one location: Glenwood Middle School.
But after last summer, a number of families said they couldn't travel to the school to pick up the free meal.
"We have some children who wouldn't have lunch otherwise over the summer," Jessica Nichols, Feed-a-Child coordinator at the Findlay YMCA, said. "So, we have to make sure that we're everything we can to make sure every child is fed over the summer as well."
So, an online survey was launched to see where any additional location could be set up in the summer of 2023 to make it easier for either family members or the students on their own to get lunch.
The data from the survey will also show program leaders how many more volunteers they will need on hand to make sure every location will work smoothly. Each site might need three to four volunteers, Alvarez said.
"We just want to make sure that if there are children who were not able to get to the lunch before, we're able to help serve them this summer," Nichols said. "We know food is an issue for a lot of families and we just want to make sure that kids are taken care of over the Summer, not just during the school year."