Summer Program Offers Kids Real Meal Deal of Free Breakfast, Lunch

Classes are out, but a lunch at Santa Paula’s Glen City Elementary School this week consisted of a corn dog, baked curly fries, fruit salad and small carton of milk.

A modest repast to be sure, but a whole lot better than the endless peanut butter and jelly sandwiches Steve and Linda Meisel of Santa Paula have had to feed their four children since he got laid off by a trucking company.

“We’re lucky to make enough money to make our rent, let alone feed the kids,” said Linda Meisel, 41. “They get a better lunch and breakfast here than what I can feed them after paying the bills.”

Childhood summers have traditionally meant sodas and ice cream. But for many Ventura County children, summer is also about growling stomachs.

The federally funded summer food program, which provides about 2,000 kids in the county with free breakfasts and lunches, has helped fill the need--and stomachs--since the 1960s.

“If a child is needy during the school year, they’re no less hungry just because they’re out of school,” said Cleophus Davis, a consultant with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which turned administration of the program back to the state this summer for the first time in 17 years.

The number of hungry children who take advantage of the program is growing by more than 10% a year statewide, said Ronna Jakobitz, manager of the state’s summer and adult food care programs. However, it is estimated that the 159,000 children statewide who participated in the program on an average day last summer represented only about 10% of the children who actually need the assistance, she said.

There are about 20 sites in Thousand Oaks, Ventura, Santa Paula and Fillmore offering free breakfasts and lunches June 24 through Aug. 23. Sites are in neighborhoods where there are a sufficient number of families meeting income guidelines. Once a site starts up, anyone younger than 18 may receive a meal.

Most sites are affiliated with school districts, although the Upward Bound program at Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks operates two sites for its 80 students that are closed to the public.

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The Santa Paula Elementary School District, which began participating in the program in 1993, has served almost 2,000 meals at six sites already this summer. That’s one more location than the district operated last year, and attendance has exceeded projections at two other sites, said Ruth Ricards, director of food services.

She attributes the attendance increase at least partly to awareness--a banner was hung over Main Street publicizing the program.

“There’s a need in the community,” Ricards said. “We’ve got hungry kids, and I like feeding hungry kids.”

Single mom Teresa Oseguera, 36, of Santa Paula has eight young mouths to feed.

“If this program weren’t here my kids would still eat,” she said, but she conceded the meals are probably more nutritious than she can afford on her unemployment and welfare checks. “But I was able to buy them their Fourth of July clothes with the money I’m going to save.”

Oseguera, like Steve and Linda Meisel and other parents, can only watch their children eat.

The couple will probably eat yet another peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch when they get home, Linda said. Nevertheless, the Meisels say the program will make a difference until they get on their financial feet again.

“It’s really nice. They don’t make you feel any less of a person for coming here,” she said. “You don’t come here and lose any self-respect . . . and that’s important.”