Hopewell Schools Launch Summer Food Bus to Combat Hunger

For many students in Virginia, school provides the only certain meals of the day, and when the end-of-year grades are filed in June, that certainty disappears.

The gap left by the nine-month public school calendar is news to no one: for almost 50 years the federally funded Summer Food Service Program has provided free meals to low-income students during June, July and August. But while the program is available, it isn’t always accessible: school systems aren’t required to offer transportation to bring students to the meal sites during the summer, and the hours those sites are open don’t always mesh with parents’ work schedules.

What that often means is that kids go without. According to the No Kid Hungry campaign, only about 13 percent of students in the commonwealth who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch take advantage of the SFSP’s free meals during the summer.

In Hopewell, Director of Operations Patrick Barnes is taking an innovative approach to this problem: if he can’t get the kids to the table, he’ll bring the table to the kids.

This summer, Hopewell City Public Schools is launching its brand-new Food Bus: an older school bus that with about $40,000 in alterations has been revamped into a food truck that will bring summer meals to Hopewell’s affordable housing communities.

According to Barnes, before Virginia began using the Community Eligibility Provision to determine the level of meals assistance it would provide to school districts, Hopewell had the fourth-highest number of students in the state who were eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, with about 82 percent on average found eligible.

The bus, said Barnes, “is absolutely an investment to get more meals to our high-need children in the summertime.”

Now, thanks to retrofitting by Old Dominion Metal in Richmond, the bus has had most of its seats removed, with plans to replace them with refrigerated and electric heating cabinets to keep meals cool or warm as needed. To avoid more costly installations, no cooking will be done on board, but students will have access to the same meals they can get in the schools, including an entree, two fruits, two vegetables and milk.

Every Monday to Thursday from June 19 to Aug. 24, the bus will travel to Piper Square, Davisville Bland Court and Thomas Rolfe Court, where any child can receive a free lunch, no questions asked.

Stops will include 1529 Piper Square Dr., from 11 to 11:20 a.m.; 913 Terminal St., from 11:30 to 11:50 a.m.; and 211 S. 7th Ave., from noon to 12:20 p.m., as well as the Hopewell Rec Center, from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m.

No meals will be distributed July 3 and 4 because of the Fourth of July holiday.

The idea stemmed from a project implemented by Chesapeake Public Schools, Barnes said.

“I thought it was a neat idea,” he said. “It just got my wheels turning.”

Now, it looks like his efforts have set others’ wheels turning as well: after Barnes got to work on the Hopewell Food Bus, a colleague at Harrisonburg Public Schools launched a similar project. Both buses are currently undergoing modifications at Old Dominion Metals.

Once Hopewell’s vehicle work is complete, Tim Dunn at Style Line in Chester will decorate the bus to make it clearly recognizable and, in Barnes’ words, “pretty it up.”

To Barnes, the Food Bus is simply the next logical step in the expansion of Hopewell’s Summer Food Service Program. Since the district began offering the meals in 2013, the number of students taking advantage of the service has grown each year, from under $10,000 in meals the first summer to more than $40,000 in meals in summer 2016.

With the greater accessibility the Food Bus will provide, those figures seem likely to rise even higher this summer.

After all, said Barnes, “it’s easy. They just walk up and get a meal.”