HELENA — Friday is the last day for the majority of the Helena Public Schools' (HPS) free summer meal program.
Over the nine weeks, 1,900 kids were fed about 75,000 meals, which is around 15,000 fewer meals than last summer.
(Watch to learn more about how impactful the summer meal program was for Helena kids.)
The HPS food service director and Sodexo manager, Robert Worthy, attributes this decrease to changes in distribution sites from new regulations.
Prepping, cooking, and serving up the meals took around 3,800 hours of manual labor from a team of eleven people.
The meals are funded through the United States Department of Agriculture; family income does not matter in determining eligibility for the meals.
The only requirement is that those eating them are under 18 years old.
"You get whole grains, you get lean proteins, you get your fruits and vegetables every day. It all comes as part of your meal," said Worthy. "It's not just about eating nutritious. It's about exposing them to other types of foods that they're not used to, and [they could] say, 'Hey, Mom, can we have some of this yellow and white stuff again? That was pretty good.'"
The YMCA program and Camp Child will continue to serve meals through next week, which will officially end this summer's program.
