Many children rely on their school cafeteria to eat lunch every day.

But when summer break hits, some families can struggle to fill that gap.

The summer food service program administered by the Kentucky Board of Education, aims to fill that gap from now until August.

There will be 1800 food sites providing meals to children who are from low income families.

The meal sites are any where children gather that's safe and where children are.

So a lot of our meal sites are at schools and school cafeterias that could be on a football field.

At a school.

At a pool.

At a park like this, Oftentimes where the sites are set up, they're set up in areas where there is a higher concentration of families that need meals.

Sometimes that's based on the school free or reduced percentage in that area.

But eligibility for a child that comes to an open site, which is a site like this, is kids just show up.

They don't have to bring any kind of proof of income.

It's just a site open to any child.

Food chain is a summer feeding food service sponsor.

So we work with the state to provide the meals here in Fayette County for a bunch of different site programs for receiving a free summer lunch through this program.

You have to be between the ages of one and 18 or students who are 19 to 21 who have a physical or mental disability and are still enrolled in school, can come to the site and get lunches.

Those are who the main portion of the meals is intended to serve, and they can show up to any of the sites and receive a meal if needed.

However, if there's any X-rays or anything, we want to make sure that food security is provided for anyone.

We know the parents are hungry too.

So if there are leftovers, parents and others can receive the extra meals.

Each local organization that is involved.

For the most part, prepare their own meals.

They have a commercial kitchen.

They prepare the meals, They follow a meal pattern that's required from USDA, and then they get those meals out to the local meal sites.

And they're served either by their employees.

Occasionally, they'll have volunteers.

We employ high schoolers through the Lexington Summer Youth Employment Program.

So all of those are high schoolers who are out of school for the summer and are able to come and earn $15 an hour helping us with their summer meals.

So they're the ones who are in charge of counting mouths, counting food, getting each site set up, helping load sites, cars and things like that.

In 2019, our average number of meals a day was between 50 and maxed out at like 80.

And now this year, on average, every day we're doing between 530 and 590 lunches alone.

In recent years, the need has not only increased, but in recent months, the growth of need has been astronomical.

That food chain experience is so food chain is working really hard to try to keep up with that need while finding new and diverse ways to be able to support those big, big changes.

Our children are growing and developing and they need that good nutrition year round.

You know, a child that's had poor nutrition during the summer doesn't come back to school as ready to learn as they might have if they'd been well nourished.

So I think it helps meet the gaps in the summer months that could occur even if a family had access to SNAP funds or quick funds and if their children are getting free or reduced school meals during the school year, they don't have a higher budget when the kids are home in the summer.

So it could just be their marginally struggling.

But this would help them make that meet that need for a good nutritious meal for their children.

And to find a food site near you, you can call the USDA Hunger Hotline or text food or COMIDA to 304304.