Summer Meals Program

Roughly 76% of the children in Monroe County qualify for free or reduced lunch at school. But when summer break comes, those kids are no longer guaranteed to get what might have been their only nutritious meal of the day.

That’s where PVEN’s Summer Meals program comes in. 

This year’s program was designed to get healthy food into the hands of hungry children as easily as possible.

We know families are busier today than ever before, so we’ve made picking up lunch quick and easy.  This summer, families will only have to come out to PVEN once each week to pick up five days’ Grab n Go lunches for each child.  You don’t need to register in advance or call for an appointment, and there won’t be a pile of paperwork to complete when you arrive, either – just give us a signature and the number of children we’re feeding, and we’ll do the rest!

We know children like lunches that taste great and are easy to eat, so we’ve selected foods that are tasty AND fun to eat!  Grownups can feel confident knowing that the items are all USDA-approved, nutritious, and mostly shelf-stable (frozen fruit cups must be stored in a refrigerator or freezer to maintain freshness for the week, and most folks agree that shelf-stable milk tastes best cold!).  

Instead of worrying about what to have for lunch, families can focus on summer fun, knowing that a healthy lunch is waiting for them five days a week.

PVEN’s Summer Meals program began in 2016, and in that first year, we delivered 3,600 meals to hungry kids. By 2018, the program had blossomed into almost 10,000 meals served for the  summer! That means a lot – not just to hungry kids, but also to concerned parents, grandparents, and guardians: with reliable, nutritious, delicious meals, kids have a better chance at staying healthy, alert, and curious, and retaining all they learned over the previous school year –  things that perpetually hungry kids struggle to maintain.  That makes them better prepared to succeed when they return to school in the fall!