Schools, Food Pantries Step Up to Serve Students and Seniors in Northeast Ohio

Schools across Ohio closed their doors and moved classes online as COVID-19 began to spread through the state in mid-March. While students are still learning, there are many who relied on their school for breakfast and lunch, but groups across Northeast Ohio are taking steps to ensure that nobody – young or old – will go hungry.

Laura Kepler is the Coordinator of Child Nutrition with Akron Public Schools. She oversees a meal pickup program for Akron students. Since the program began on March 17, Kepler said they have served roughly 9,000 meals each day from 37 schools in neighborhoods around Akron.

“When we have all students in school we do about 26,000 meals a day,” Kepler said, “This is about three times more than when our schools are closed and we feed in the summer, so this is definitely a greater need of people turning out to get food to their children.”

Students pick up meals with their parent or guardian from the main entrance of their school. Kepler said organizing the meal pickup program was very abrupt. Kitchens needed to switch to preparing cold grab-and-go meals rather than the hot meals students usually eat at school. Kepler said they’ve needed to source different foods, but they are still working with Akron Public Schools’ usual food providers.

Maintaining safe conditions has also been a challenge. Kepler said they need to be mindful of social distancing guidelines to protect not only students and their families, but also the school employees preparing these meals.

Similar steps are being taken by the Stark County Hunger Task Force. On March 30, the task force opened a drive thru food pantry consistent with their pantry’s regular hours. Executive Director Maureen Kampman said the task force instituted new sanitation protocols for volunteers. Clients utilizing the drive thru are advised not to exit their vehicles, instead volunteers will fill clients’ trunks with prepackaged groceries from the pantry.

“We are definitely exercising social distancing,” Kampman said, “both with our waiting space and as our clients access our pantry.”

Kampman said the task force served 15 percent more clients in March 2020 compared to last March. Other food pantries around Ohio have reported increases higher than 50 percent. Two thirds of those people are utilizing emergency food services for the first time.

“One reason for developing this drive-thru pantry model is a hope to be able to increase our number served,” Kampman said, “As we see different businesses closing, and people out of work, laid off, we only anticipate the need for food in Stark County to grow.”

The Stark County Hunger Task Force is just one of 500 network agencies provided with food from the Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank. CEO Dan Flowers said 50 of these agencies have dropped out of their network since the pandemic began.

“Agencies were concerned that a lot of their seniors that were volunteers were at really high risk for COVID-19, and they started closing their doors,” Flowers said, “and citing the intake process as the reason.”

Until recently clients were required to submit to an intake assessment to determine their eligibility and gather household information. This involved exchanging paperwork with volunteers, thereby increasing the risk of transmitting the virus. That changed on April 7 when the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services requested the Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) approval to utilize the Disaster Household Distribution Program.

“We believe that accountability is important, and we support the need for that, and we always comply with those things,” Flowers said, “But in this instance it was just really unsafe.”

USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue approved the request following a letter of support from Senators Sherrod Brown and Rob Portman as well as 12 of Ohio’s 16 representatives in the House.

The distribution program expedites the intake process, requiring only basic questions which can be asked from a distance on arrival: How many households are in the car and how many people will be using this food.

“(This allows us) to feed more people within the timeframe that our pantry is open,” Kampman said, “We need very limited information from each client, and we’re just doing a head count of people in each household.”

Kampman said that because there’s no passing of information, the task force is better able to maintain a social distance between their clients and volunteers, some of whom are senior citizens.

However, not everybody has the means to utilize a drive thru pantry. That’s why Mobile Meals is now serving more senior citizens in Summit and Portage Counties.

“We’re not turning any seniors down,” Director Audley McGill said, “If they need a meal we’re going to make sure they get one every day.”

Mobile Meals has hired more drivers and opened the door for more volunteers to keep up with the greater demand. Delivery drivers also perform wellness checks on their senior clients.

“Not only are we delivering meals, but we’re checking on seniors at the same time, which is needed right now.” McGill said.

The Stark County Hunger Task Force is housed in the Goodwill at the Ken Weber Community Campus, located at 408 Ninth street SW in Canton. Information on pantries in the task force’s network can be found here.

Pantries, soup kitchens and homeless shelters in the Akron Canton Regional Food Bank’s network can be found here.