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Summer Meal Program For At-Risk Children In Need Of Donations

Courtesy Partners for Wichita
Volunteers bag lunches for at-risk children as part of the Filling the Gap Lunches for Kids program.

A local program that provides free healthy meals for children at risk of hunger during the summer is asking for urgent help from the community.

The Filling the Gap Lunches for Kids program serves more than 800 children at more than a dozen sites in the Wichita area each day. But because Wichita’s public schools are starting later this year, the program will be providing meals to students for a week longer than expected.

Sheila Cairns with Partners for Wichita, the group behind the meal program, estimates the weekly cost for the meals is around $12,000. And currently, that’s money they don’t have.

“Right now, our foremost need is money," Cairns says. "We purchase shelf-stable meals for this program through the Kansas Food Bank, and it costs us another $12,000 to feed that many kids for another week.”

The Filling the Gap program is funded entirely by grants and donations. The meals are available at no cost to children.

Cairns says secure online donations can be made online via at the Partners for Wichita website or sent by mail to Partners for Wichita, 925 N. Waco, Wichita, KS, 67203.

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Follow Abigail Wilson on Twitter, @AbigailKMUW

 

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