Great Bend’s five elementary schools will serve free breakfast and lunch to anyone who is 18 years old or younger this summer, starting Tuesday.
While a cold breakfast is served at Eisenhower, Jefferson, Lincoln, Park and Riley schools from 8-8:30 a.m. Monday through Friday, the staff at the USD 428 Central Kitchen will be preparing a hot lunch to be served from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at the same schools.
This service will continue at all schools through July 1. Riley Elementary will continue to serve lunches through July.
Adults may purchase meals; the cost is $2 for breakfast and $3.50 for lunch. The menus are published every Sunday in the Great Bend Tribune. This week’s menu can be in the "related content" box.
The Kansas State Department of Education reports thousands of students will be able to eat healthy, nutritious snacks this summer through its Summer Food Service Program. Other participating locations in Barton County are Ellinwood High School, Ellinwood Swimming Pool and Hoisington High School.
KSDE’s program has added 28 new sponsors, 10 new counties in which food will be served and dozens of new sites across the state.
New counties are Rawlins, Norton, Morris, Kingman, Barber, Hamilton, Jackson, Lane, Lincoln and Chase, said Kelly Chanay, assistant director of Child Nutrition and Wellness.
“We’re also seeing an increase in non-school sponsors,” Chanay said. “We’ve been really hitting the ground hard these past few years.”

In 2011, more than 846,000 meals were served, compared to 2015’s 1.3 million, as the number of sites grew from 278 to 484.
Sites have the option of serving breakfast, lunch, dinner or snacks or a combination. Any child between the ages of 1 and 18 is invited to eat free or charge.
Each sponsor is reimbursed for the meals from the United States Department of Agriculture. Last year, Kansas sponsors were reimbursed $4.05 million.

Sterling USD 376 is trying something a little different this summer. The district will provide meals at Sterling Grade School. However, a district bus will pick up students from Alden, which is 7 miles away, so those students can be served, too, said Sandy Skucius, food service director for USD 376. The students will be returned to Alden or, if permission is given by a parent, they can stay in Sterling.
A typical meal served at the Sterling site might consist of a pig in a blanket, broccoli and cheese and fruit cocktail, Skucius said.
“Homemade cheese pizza is popular,” she said.
Several different groups, such as camps, day cares and driver’s education students, partake in the meals.
“All of these little components help enhance my program, and I enhance their programs,” Skucius said. “There are some kids who aren’t getting food during the summer or they are hungry. This is a good program to catch those kids.”