City’s Driving Meals To Kids Until School Starts

The New Haven school district is bringing meals to kids via truck at four new sites for stops through Aug. 22.

Pizza, plums, milk and juice were on the menu Tuesday afternoon as children, dripping wet in their bathing suits, lined up by the Galvin Playground Sprinkler on Greenwich Avenue to receive their meals. Mayor Toni Harp and Superintendent Garth Harries visited the site to help get the word out about the program.

This summer the city has sought to increase the visibility of its free meal programs in order to serve more children.

“When I call a snow day in the winter, when school’s out for the summer, I worry about kids getting their meals,” Harries said.

The food truck initiative, which kicked off early last month, takes place five days a week. It is free for all children 18 and under, regardless of their affiliation to the public school system.

Without the helping hand of the mobile food truck, Harries explained, ​“many of these kids would not get a meal otherwise.”

The list of truck stops casts a wide net, serving lunch at Dover Beach Park to handing out supper at DeGale Field. The four new stops for the next week and a half are all schools: Fair Haven, Wexler-Grant, Lincoln-Bassett and Brennan-Rogers.

Gail Sharry, the district’s director of food services, said these new sites will be served by a school bus, rather than the United Way-donated food truck, to accommodate for the increase in demand — 80 to 120 more children.

The food truck aims to supplement the summer lunch and breakfast programs, which ended last Friday, by putting the meals on wheels and transporting them to parks and playgrounds. All combined, the district estimates it will have served over a quarter of a million meals this summer.

Despite the presence of city officials, Tuesday was just another water-soaked rendezvous by the sprinklers.

Carla Martínez, mother of three, said the food truck provides her family with an opportunity that cannot be passed up. She brings her daughters to the Galvin Playground every day. Her youngest, Jocelyn (pictured, left), with pizza stains on her cheeks and ​“Dora The Explorer” T‑shirt, carried her juice box around the jungle gym.

“It’s something for people in need,” said Astrid Torres, her young son Dylan in tow. ​“I know people on food stamps who never buy anything.”

Kids gathered around a picnic table to munch on their meals. Manuel Rosario (pictured, right), who’s 8 years old, ate his pizza with gusto.

Manuel seemed a bit perplexed when a toddler in a woman’s arms won a bike, after Harries’ fourth attempt at drawing a winning ticket during a raffle. But he had bigger fish to fry now. It was time to join the water wars by filling his empty milk carton.

That the food truck makes a daily stop by the playground, Manuel said, is a welcome gesture.

“And it’s good for the people,” he added, before launching his water missile toward his opponent and heading for the sprinklers.