Lunch out of school

A community lunch program created by Island Grown Initiative (IGI) provided free lunches to about 75 families, including 154 children, on a weekly basis throughout the summer, before school lunches begin again in the fall through the public school system. 

IGI representatives said they have been stepping in for the past eight years to fill a nutrition gap during the summer, when many families are without a reliable source of lunches. 

IGI is part of an Island Food Equity Network which, along with other Island organizations, such as farms, faith-based groups, and schools, noticed a gap in care back in 2017. When school let out for summer break, many of the families who relied on the lunches provided were struggling to come up with ways to give their children nutritious meals while they were working. 

“One of the things we’re always trying to do is identify gaps in the food system; where is it that we need to do more to make sure that everybody on the Island has access to the food that they need. And one of the first things that we recognized in the Food Equity Network meeting was out-of-school meals,” co-executive director of IGI Noli Taylor said. “So IGI decided that we would step into that space.”

Merrick Carreiro, IGI’s food equity director, created a system in which families fill out a Google form online for meals that are specific to what their kids need. 

“This is a time when so many Islanders are struggling to make ends meet. It’s very hard for working families to cover the basic cost of living. Between the cost of housing here, the cost of food, all of the expenses of being an Islander — [they] add up and make it really difficult for families with children, working individuals, and elders on fixed incomes.” Taylor said. “Programs like community lunch [are] so targeted … [and] help relieve some of the burden that families face, the stress that families face, from the business of working in the summer, and trying to make the food that their kids will eat.”

The program ran until August 19.

Some popular choices included carrot ginger soup and chickpea curry, which are prepared in the kitchen with locally sourced produce. The prepared meals were stored in large freezers at the front of their location in the Martha’s Vineyard Airport Business Park. 

If families were looking to make their own meals, they also had the option to select fixings such as fresh produce, bread, sliced ham and turkey, cheese, yogurt parfaits, and tuna salad — all grown or sourced from IGI. Food items were assembled into large paper bags which lined the metal shelves.

“Kids try new things, like chickpea curry, so it’s a great way for families to expose kids to other foods they might not have otherwise.” Carreiro said. 

But while Taylor and Carreiro said the system ran with ease this summer, the Community Lunch Program has gone through some changes since its creation. 

“The first year we worked through a federal program — the Summer Food Service Program — that helped reimburse [us for food], but there were requirements of the program that didn’t work so well for our community,” Taylor said. 

She clarified that according to the program, they would only be allowed to serve people 18 and under, and would have to serve certain foods, among other challenges. 

“The restrictions were so great that we knew we weren’t able to meet the actual needs of the parents who were utilizing that program. So we turned to private philanthropy and we asked local donors to fund the program, and that’s how it’s worked ever since then,” Taylor said.

The community lunch program also provided lunches to other summer programs for students like English language learners (ELL) Summer Program, Extended School Year Summer Program (ESY), the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School (MVRHS) Summer Program, M.V. Family Center, and Early Childhood Education Preschool Program.

“It’s taken years to come up with a system that’s really providing the kind of coverage we want to see,” Taylor said. 

Those who organize the Community Lunch Program said it’s had a large impact on the overall Island community. On a pickup day at the Airport Business Park a few weeks ago, those who picked up their lunches expressed their gratitude for the service provided and the food they received. 

“There is so much value to this program … making sure that kids are eating, and it saves families so much headache … So that’s one benefit. The other is just filling in this gap in terms of financial stress it puts on a family; it’s a lot,” Carreiro said. 

According to Taylor and Carreiro, this program has also helped normalize accepting help when it comes to food access.

“There’s all these ways that food brings us together,” Taylor said. “It’s important to us that nobody feels like there’s a stigma around eating support — around food access — and that’s a way that we try and design all of our programs, so everybody just feels welcomed and respected. We all know that any of us could need support anytime, so that’s an energy around all of our food equity programs that is important to us to maintain.”