Putnam School’s Summer Meal Program Successful

Putnam County Schools delivered over 2,500 meals through their free summer meals program this year.

That according to Food Service Program Supervisor Kathlyn Walter.

“It was even larger and more wonderful than we had expected,” Walter said. “We served about 20 percent of our student population in Putnam County, which is really very exciting.”

Walter said because of the success of this year’s program, the district is already looking to expand summer meals for 2019. One area the district looks to improve on is delivering more meals to Baxter-area students.

“We’ve already got talks of more buses, more routes we can reach out to the community better,” Walter said. ” There are areas like Baxter… it’s a little more spread out. There’s not a lot of areas where people congregate in Baxter, so we’re hoping to reach out to that community a little bit more.”

Walter said children and families served through the program were happy to receive the free meals.

“There were several really excited,” Walter said. “We’ve had kids waiting for the bus when the buses came by. I know we’ve received letters from families and community members who are sad to see summer feeding leave.”

Although the district will not be delivering meals on buses during the school year, Walter said the district’s Super Snack program will be available at the end of each school day at each school in the county.