HELENA — The Helena Public Schools Food Service Team has been non-stop in the pandemic.
Through USDA funding, food services are able to provide free meals to all children up to 18 all school year long, including on weekends.
On average, Helena Public Schools are serving over 30,000 meals a week. Over 100,000 meals were served just in March 2021.
The Food Service Director says in a school year without the pandemic, about 25,000 meals a week would be the average.
Food Service programs have had to change to make sure our youth continues to be fed daily. Not only did they implement school buses to have pick up locations in our community, food services also accepted an opportunity to remove school boundaries, meaning they could feed kids in surrounding neighborhoods, outside the school district.
“I'm constantly coming up with new ideas and working with my staff, working with the community to find out different needs that we can meet,” says Robert Worthy, Food Service Director for Helena Public Schools. “It's amazing how many different avenues we've managed to meet different people's needs that I never even thought of over a year ago. These are just things that have completely come up that have never existed before."
Worthy says they are extending their food programs until September 30th, 2021.
