Aiken County Public Schools has provided more than 100,000 meals to school children across Aiken County in almost two weeks.
Specifically, bus drivers have delivered or parents and family members have picked up 127,262 bagged breakfasts and lunches as of Thursday while South Carolina schools are closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Merry Glenne Piccolino, the district's director of Communications, said in an email Friday the district hopes to be able to continue serving meals to students throughout the closure. On Tuesday, S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster extended the closure of all public K-12 schools through April 30.
“Distribution has been going very well, and we are extremely grateful to our employees, particularly those in school food service, transportation, maintenance/custodial and aide positions for their continued dedication to ensuring healthy meals for children throughout our county,” Piccolino said.
Piccolino said the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently approved distributing multiple days of meals at once.
“We are discussing the feasibility of that option,” she said. “It is likely that we will move to multiple-day distribution as early as Tuesday.”
Piccolino said the school district is exploring delivery options for the week of April 6-10, when schools were scheduled to be closed for spring break.
“We will be sharing additional details about multiple-day distribution of nutritional services and spring break as those plans are finalized,” she said.
The district's no-cost, grab-and-go meals are available to any student desiring one. Each grab-and-go bag will contain nutrition for breakfast as well as lunch.
Buses transporting food for students will begin their routes at 11 a.m., and most will have made their deliveries by 12:30 p.m. For information on estimated arrival times, visit www.acpsd.net/Domain/78.
Food for students is also available by picking up a grab-and-go bag at any Aiken County Public Schools' campus between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m.
Click here to read the full Aiken Standard article.