Lawrence site offering free meals for kids twice a week through Aug. 13

Some of the local sites offering free summer meals for kids will soon wind down for the year, but one more is now available two days a week through Saturday, Aug. 13.

Sack lunches for kids and teens up to age 18 will be available from 10 to 10:30 a.m. every Tuesday and Saturday through Aug. 13. Meals can be picked up at Clinton Park near Fifth and Maine streets, adjacent to Pinckney Elementary School. (Not Clinton State Park southwest of town — see a map at the bottom of this post.) Meals may be eaten off-site.

Harvesters, Just Food, the Kansas State Department of Education and United Way of Douglas County helped Pinckney parents get the logistics and approvals in order to offer meals twice a week in July and August, Rebekah Gaston said in an email Monday. Harvesters is serving as the sponsor registered with KSDE, and they provide shelf-stable sack lunches for the meal program, Gaston said.

The meal sites at Billy Mills Middle School and Holcom Park will continue serving through Friday, July 29. The Lawrence Public Library site will be available from noon to 1 p.m. on weekdays through Friday, Aug. 5. (See more details and the exact times for these sites here.)

As a reminder, the federal government-sponsored program that was providing universal free meals for all students was not renewed for another year. Families will need to apply to qualify for free and reduced-price lunches for the coming school year. Find more information about how to do that at this link.

School starts with a partial “transition day” for kindergarten, sixth and ninth grades on Wednesday, Aug. 17, and kindergarten through 12th grades start their regular schedules on Thursday, Aug. 18. See the full Lawrence Public Schools calendar at this link, and see individual schools’ webpages for arrival and dismissal times.

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