The YMCA of the Inland Northwest summer meal program was recently awarded its fourth grant from Walmart to help provide free meals for low-income kids, said Julie Banks, YMCA community development director.
The meal program, which opens June 16, has previously provided more than 6,000 free meals and snacks at the Valley YMCA alone, Banks said. While the meals are provided via the Y’s summer day camp program, it is considered an “open” service, meaning kids don’t have to go to the day camp (which costs money) to eat the free meals. Kids don’t need to provide proof of income to eat, she said.
Food is subsidized through several sources, including the $20,000 Walmart grant, private donations, and federal funds, since the meals are part of a federal nutrition initiative served via Spokane Public Schools, Banks said. The YMCA is one of about 60 locations serving meals in Spokane (see above map), and Banks said she wants to get the word out about the program that many parents don’t realize exists.
The program originally began because kids who arrived at the YMCA day camps didn’t have much of a lunch, Banks said.
“Camp kids were bringing an inadequate lunch or no lunch at all. Some kids would come for the whole day and their lunches would be a bottle of Mountain Dew and a packet of mini doughnuts,” she said.
Many camp kids also receive free meals, Banks said, and their camp fees are subsidized by scholarships or reimbursed by the Department of Social and Health Services. Approximately 40 percent of YMCA after school program attendees receive financial assistance, including day campers, according to internal records.
For many parents sending kids to camp, the meals make the difference between making it happen and keeping children at home.
“If not for the availability of lunches this summer at the camp, I would not have been able to send my two children,” one parent said in an email to Banks. “We receive free meals during the school year and if I had to provide lunches for my two children, I wouldn’t have been able to afford it.”
IF YOU GO:
Open meal sites: Central, Valley, North YMCA locations
Begins: June 16
Eligibility: Under age 18
Income proof required: No.
