At the Perrywood Garden Apartments near Aberdeen, Maryland, dozens of kids are our playing on the lawns when the weather is nice. That’s because there’s nowhere else to go if you’re a kid in Perrywood in the summertime. Cut off from the world by a busy highway, miles from the nearest grocery store, Perrywood might as well be an island.
The majority of the children in this Maryland suburb come from low-income families. They rely on free meals at school, and when school is out for the summer, it can be hard for families to cover the extra food costs.
The food and nutrition team at Harford County Schools makes sure all the kids in the county schools have the food they need during the school year, but their work doesn’t stop when the school year ends.
"We felt like we weren’t reaching the kids who were truly hungry,” said Kristen Sudzina, who helps lead the summer meals program here. “How do we feed those kids that stay home? They’re watching brothers and sisters. That’s why we looked at bringing the services to the neighborhoods. They can’t afford to go to a boys and girls club or a summer camp."
"How do we feed them?” she asked.
To reach kids at places like this across the county, Kristen and her colleagues started a mobile meals program. Kristen’s team, Emily and Jay, pack up a van filled with healthy lunches for the kids, then they head over to Perrywood to set up.
Before they’ve even stepped out of the van there are already kids running across the parking lot to greet them. Emily and Jay open up the back of the van and pull two giant coolers out from the dark interior. One is filled with bagged lunches, the other has milk for the kids. The children line up behind the van to get their lunch. Moms and dads are often with them, reminding them to say “please” and “thank you” as they take their bags. Some older siblings line up their younger brothers and sisters, leading them through the process. All the kids know Emily and Jay, and they often have treats — like school supplies or books.
As many as 90 kids a day will eat a free meal at Perrywood thanks to the Harford County mobile meals program. And that’s just one stop on the route. They served 20,000 lunches in just one month last summer, and with support from No Kid Hungry they continue to look for new ways to reach kids, so families at places like Perrywood don’t have to worry about their children going hungry just because school is out.
