Macon summer lunches reach hundreds of hungry students

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, June O’Neal has helped serve lunches to kids while school is out, bridging the gap between when summer school ends and when the next school year begins.

O’Neal previously gave out lunches and performed other charitable endeavors through the Mentor’s Project, a nonprofit partnered with the Bibb County School District to pair adult mentors with teenagers. 

But she retired from her longtime post at the Mentor’s Project two years ago, and she was asked whether the meals would continue this summer.

“I wasn’t with the Mentor’s Project but my mother always said God will make a way in no way,” she said. “I just felt like that was the right thing to do.”

Volunteers will deliver meals to students through the end of July. 

O’Neal’s friends and their children get started packing lunches at 8 a.m. every Monday at the FAT Ministry in Bolingbroke. They make sandwiches and throw in snacks like beef jerky and watermelon.

All students across all public schools in Bibb County are eligible for free lunch under the federal Community Eligibility Provision. School districts with high poverty rates utilize the provision to provide lunch and breakfast to all of their students.

A district’s eligibility is determined by the percentage of students who receive meals from programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or are homeless, migrant or Head Start children. Nearly 60% of students in Bibb County fall into this group.

In June, the district’s nutrition program served 32,000 meals to students attending summer school across the district, according to Donnanique Washington, executive director of school nutrition.

“While not every student participated, the program successfully reached a significant number of children throughout the community,” Washington wrote.