NORTHAMPTON – Starting on June 23 families will be able to pick up meals every Wednesday through Aug. 18 from four locations in Northampton as a part of Northampton Public School’s Summer Eats Program for children and teens.

Families can pick up meals at Hampshire Heights from 1:35 to 2:05 p.m., along with Florence Heights, 236 Pleasant St., and Meadowbrook Apartments from 1 to 1:30 p.m.

Mistelle Hannah, Northampton Public Schools’ director of food services, said the district has been offering a summer meal program since 2019.

“We have been offering a summer meal program through the state’s Summer Eats Initiative since the summer of 2019. That is a USDA sponsored, state supported free meals for teens and kids’ program,” she said.

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Hannah said the district almost immediately began offering free meals at four locations across the city.

“When COVID-19 started and school shut down, the federal government changed everybody pretty much into that style of meal program where it was free for all kids. We started our program in Northampton between March 17 and March 20, 2020,” she said. “What we had started doing at that time was loading meals onto buses and delivering them to four sites in the city where families could pick up seven days’ worth of meals at a time.”

Hannah said meal pickups are completely anonymous and her staff does not ask any questions about families.

“We don’t ask any questions, we do not require that you live in Northampton, we do not require that you are a student of our district, and families can pick up for their children while they are at home, which is a temporary waiver in the federal program, typically children have to pick up the meals themselves but because of COVID they are allowing parent pick up,” she said.

For the meal program, Hannah said the district teamed up with Grow Foods to connect with local farms to provide fresh produce for children in the area.

“We work closely with local farms and a local grassroots organization called Grow Foods, and they connect us to local farms so we can provide local, fresh produce in each of our meal bags. We do cucumbers, squash, we’ve done sweet potatoes, winter squash, right before the holidays we even did local mushrooms. So, we have been lucky with our collaborations with local farms and organizations, and we plan to continue to do that through the summer too,” she said.

For many of the meals, Hannah said the district gives students precooked food with reheating instructions.

“We do a combination of foods; we have meal safety and reheating instructions in each bag we hand out. So, we serve pizza and crispy chicken sandwiches, everything is precooked but it is frozen. We do have sandwiches in there, but we have also made house made vegetarian chili with cornbread, and burrito bowls with brown rice, beans and chicken,” she said.

Along with seven days’ worth of meals, families also receive a gallon of milk.

Once the COVID-19 pandemic ends, Hannah said she hopes the district can offer events alongside hot meals for the students.

“Prior to COVID-19 in 2019, and hopefully we get back to this, the USDA Summer Meals program for kids is designed in that you go into the community with hot meals, and you have organized activities, whether that be a library program, or YMCA or something to draw them in and you offer them a hot lunch. I’m hoping someday to get back to that because we are in this to get that interaction,” she said.

Families do not need to register ahead of picking up a meal and can just go to any of the four locations for pickup.

“I want to make sure families understand they do not have to register, we do not ask any questions, they do not have to qualify, these programs support the food service program, the school districts, and wherever the meals are being prepared, so we encourage everybody to participate,” she said.

As of the end of the school year, Hannah said the district had served over 300,000 meals.