BARBERTON, Ohio — This summer the city of Barberton is making sure the children in the community are fed - both body and mind.
The city's Park and Recreation Department will be distributing lunches, snacks and take home activities every Monday at five city parks until August 10.
"Something like this is critical," said Samantha Edgar, special events coordinator. "We're trying to give out as many as we possibly can, as quickly as we possibly can."
Edgar said on a typical year, the department gives out about 200 to 300 meals a day at the city's parks.
But thanks to a new partnership with the Children's Hunger Alliance and Ben Curtis Foundation, the department will hand out a few thousand meals with bags containing shelf stable items. Each family with children 18 and younger will receive a week's worth of meals.
"This is definitely the largest meal service we've done to date," she said. We know there's a lot of people in this community struggling right now and even during a typical year, these lunches and these services are critical to this community. Really we don't have a goal as far as how many lunches we can give out, but at the end of the day if we have one person who's life is a little bit better because of it then we're doing our job."
The staff will hand out bags at five city parks in half hour increments. Here's the schedule:
- 10:00 -10:30 a.m. - Avilee Webb Park
- 10:45 -11:15 a.m. - McCafferty Park
- 11:30 -12 pm - Edgewood Park
- 12:15 - 12:45 p.m. - Crisman Park
- 1:00 - 1:30 p.m. - Tuscora Park
If you'd like to donate to the Summer Lunch Program, click here.
