Free lunches are available for children who live in the Washington Community School District. There are 11 drop off sites that operate on Mondays and Wednesdays each week through the remainder of the school closure due to COVID-19. It is offered to any kid from 1-18 years old who shows up. On Mondays each child will receive two bagged lunches and on Wednesdays they’ll receive three.

Superintendent Willie Stone said it’s important to continue to offer this service to students, “Most people may not know this, but over half of our student population is on free and reduced lunch. We just want to make sure that our kids are able to eat and able to get something that is nutritious and healthy in their body daily. So that’s something that we’re working really hard to do. And I’ll be very honest, our kitchen staff has been amazing. They’re working very hard coming in and we did limit it to two times per week so that we’re not exposing a lot of people several time throughout the week. But we’re trying to make sure that we offer programming for our students or offer meals for our students. And again, we just want to thank our kitchen staff and anyone who is going to help deliver at the sites.”

An online survey is available for people to take so they can create an accurate number of meals for kids in the community. Stone said they’ve had nearly 450 students take part so far.

The drop off locations are in both Washington and Brighton, they include Brighton Municipal Gas and Water, Bruty’s Corner, Case Field, HACAP, Lantern Grove Apartments, Lincoln Elementary School, Linn Hollow, Parkside Estates, St. James Catholic Church, Stewart Elementary School and Washington High School. Stone adds that rural students can receive food delivered to their homes.