After closing schools this week due to the continuing coronavirus crisis, the Elk Grove Unified School District is providing families with breakfast and lunch for children at a number of school sites.
Families can drive through and pick up meals for the children in their family between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., Tuesday through Friday, in the parking lot or bus lane at each participating school.
The following schools are offering meal pick up locations:
- Florin Elementary School
- Isabelle Jackson Elementary School
- Samuel Kennedy Elementary School
- Anna Kirchgater Elementary School
- Herman Leimbach Elementary School
- Charles Mack Elementary School
- Barbara C. Morse Elementary School
- Prairie Elementary School
- David Reese Elementary School
- Sierra Enterprise Elementary School
- Union House Elementary School
- Florin High School
- Valley High School
“Any child under the age of 18 can come to one of these sites and get a meal,” said district Director of Food and Nutrition Services Michelle Drake. “So if families don't maybe attend one of the 13 sites, they can still go to one of them and get a meal.”
Anyone under 18 years old can receive a lunch and the following day's breakfast from the drive up meal distribution at Florin Elementary School and 12 other Elk Grove Unified School District schools.Andrew Nixon / CapRadioAll 13 school districts in Sacramento County, including Elk Grove, announced Friday afternoon that they will be closing campuses for up to three weeks to combat transmission of the virus.
For Drake, this is an opportunity for families in need to extend their budget during the time of uncertainty surrounding the spread of the coronavirus.
“Those families, those parents who may be out of work because we've closed Golden 1 [Center] ... those that work service industry jobs, or maybe the numbers are down and so there's not hours for them to work at this time,” Drake said. “This helps them extend the money that they do bring in over the month by providing a breakfast and lunch for them.”
These meal pickups are also helpful for parents like Aracely Torres, who doesn’t want to bring her two children with her into crowded stores during the day. Torres was picking up meals for her two children at Florin Elementary School Friday.
“It's helping me with the snacks, keeping the kids eating something because I know it's going crazy with all everything of the coronavirus,” Torres said. “And for me, staying out of the store now with them, it's better.”
At these meal drive-throughs, parents stay in their car and an attendant passes meals through the window based on the number of children in the car. Children must be present for meals to be provided.
The district is asking parents not to congregate at the school sites, and is not allowing families to eat the meals on site, in the hopes of reducing the risk of spreading the coronavirus.
Elk Grove Unified School District is making meals available through its "drive-through" meal distribution on many of its campuses.Andrew Nixon / CapRadio
CapRadio provides a trusted source of news because of you. As a nonprofit organization, donations from people like you sustain the journalism that allows us to discover stories that are important to our audience. If you believe in what we do and support our mission, please donate today.
Donate Today
