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State-Mandated Free Lunch Worked in Galesburg
Officials in the Galesburg School District weren't too sure how the implementation this summer of a state-mandated lunch program for school-aged children would go, but officials say it turned out to be very successful.

This was the first summer that, in addition to hosting an elementary summer school, the district also had to provide a free lunch to anyone between the ages of 11-months and 18-years who wanted it.

The lunches were provided at Cooke Elementary School, and summer elementary school principal Matt LeClere says knowing that more than just summer school students were going to get lunch, planning just wasn't easy. "There was a lot of anxiety as far as 'okay, who's going to show up? How many lunches do we need to make?' There were a lot of questions that needed to be answered," LeClere said.

But LeClere says things worked out quite nicely and attendance was good. "Over the course of the summer, we served 3,936 meals. We served 603 meals to the public, for a total of 4,539 meals altogether that we served over the summer, with very few problems," LeClere said.

LeClere says many of the lunches were served to youth taking part in the Carver Community Action Agency's summer program; he says those students had lunch at Cooke once a week, and every day the first week of summer school, which he says helped.

The summer feeding program was administered by the State Board of Education, but was funded by the U-S Department of Agriculture.
08 18 08 by Newsroom
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