Children’s Mercy free lunch attracts so few, workers worry KC kids are going hungry
Few Kansas City Public Schools families showed up for free meals on Wednesday at a Children’s Mercy Hospital clinic, a site they were told could provide food after a district worker contracted COVID-19.
“This really concerns me,” said Margo Quiriconi, Director of Community Health Initiatives. . “Where are the kids going? Maybe we need to rethink our strategy in reaching families at this time.”
KCPS, with the largest free food distribution operation among schools in the area, had been feeding hundreds of students on Mondays and Wednesdays. The district handed out its last breakfasts and lunches on Monday and directed families to get free lunches at Children’s Mercy until the district could resume its giveaway.
School officials said on Tuesday that they may have their program up and running again by next week.
On Wednesday, few families showed up at the clinic near 31st Street and Broadway to get the turkey sandwich, carrots, apple and milk lunch prepared by Grandma’s Catering and Harvesters Community Food Network.
KCPS was the third area district to suspend its free lunch pickup since schools closed due to COVID-19. Last month, Raytown and Tonganoxie schools also suspended their lunch distribution after workers became ill from the new coronavirus. Raytown resumed the service this week. Tonganoxie officials said they plan to start their drive-thru meal pickup again next week.
KCPS officials said public health concerns drove their decision to suspend the meal distribution.
“U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams issued a recent warning that the pandemic is reaching a peak in this country and communities need to take extreme steps to self-quarantine. The public health concerns of putting numerous KCPS employees, students and families together is driving our decision-making process,” district officials said in a memo to parents.
Those same public health concerns could be what is keeping families away. KCPS food service leaders said they were hearing that the numbers were also down at sites provided by other districts.
Ashley Sutherland and her son Jeremiyah Bradley, 11, stopped by to pick up lunch for Jeremiyah and his 8-year-old brother. Sutherland said she saw information about Children’s Mercy Hospital’s free meal for kids on a flier.
“It helps,” she said. “It is a good thing that they are doing because the way the economy is right now, some people don’t have food at home.” She said she was shocked to hear that KCPS had suspended its meal program. And she was surprised there weren’t more people lined up for meals at the clinic. “I just think that some people probably don’t know about it. “
Children’s Mercy has four other sites where it hands out food: Children’s Mercy Don Chisholm Building at 610 E. 22nd St.; Children’s Mercy East at 20300 E. Valley View Parkway, Independence; Children’s Mercy Northland at 501 N.W. Barry Road; Children’s Mercy West at 4313 State Ave., Kansas City, Kansas.
The hospital normally serves free lunch to children during the summer as part of the USDA Summer Lunch Program. The hospital asked to activate that program in the pandemic emergency.
The hospital had already been giving out about 20 to 40 meals a day at each of its sites. After KCPS suspended operations, it quadrupled that number .
“We really thought that we were going to be bombarded, “ Quiriconi said.
“The stay at home order could be impacting families coming out,” said Sarah Sentmore, the community benefits manager at Children’s Mercy.
John Brions, his wife and four children rolled up in their cherry red SUV from their Kansas City, Kansas, home to pick up the lunches Wednesday. He and his wife have been out of work for some time. He had been working for Ford.
“Nobody is working and this really helps us.,” he said. “So now we only have to do just one meal at home.”
This story was originally published April 8, 2020 at 5:36 PM.
