|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
The Atherton Library is refuting the old saying — “There’s no such thing as a free lunch” — by offering a free lunch at the library (2 Dinkelspiel Station Lane) from June 22 through Aug. 14, Monday through Friday, 12:30 to 1 p.m.
While the lunches are meant for students taking part in the library’s educational enrichment program and their parents, anyone may partake.
The meals, provided by Revolution Foods, are designed to be healthy and tasty. Funding for the student meals comes from the federal food program and funding for the adult meals from the Second Harvest Food Bank.
Carine Risley, San Mateo County Library services manager, said the library “is elated to offer summer meals in Atherton for a second summer.” The library’s free enrichment programs and meals support youth learning success and help arrest the “summer slide” when students often lose months of their school-year learning in the summer, she said.
Ms. Risley said the program is being offered because a number of schools near the Atherton Library have a majority of students who qualify for free or reduced lunch and who are reading below grade level.
According to Second Harvest, the Atherton Library lunch program is just one of the summer food programs at more than 60 Santa Clara County sites and more than 20 San Mateo County sites where a free lunch is served to any child 18 and under.
Some of the sites also offer free breakfast and an afternoon snack, as well as free meals for adults who accompany their children. The kids’ meals are provided through the federal Summer Food Service Program and the adult meals are covered by Second Harvest Food Bank.
Go to shfb.org/getfood or call the Second Harvest’s Food Connection multilingual hotline at 800-984-3663 for more information.
The Belle Haven Branch of the Menlo Park Library is also offering free lunches to the community as part of the Summer Learning Camp. Drop by the library, located on the campus of the Belle Haven Elementary School, between 12:30PM and 1:00PM to enjoy the free lunch.
There is no free lunch. The federally funded lunches are paid for by the taxpayers. The food bank lunches are paid for by generous contributors who receive tax deductions. So the food bank lunches are partially paid for by the Federal government which means the taxpayers.