Four days a week this summer, lime green school buses loaded with games, books and computers rumbled through low-income neighborhoods south of Seattle. Their aim wasn’t just to entertain kids — but to feed them.
“It’s fun here,” said 10-year-old Mia Tolo on a recent afternoon outside one such bus, where she played Chutes and Ladders with her friend Anita Velasco after they had pizza, bananas and milk.
Department of Agriculture officials and community leaders cite the rolling rec centers, covered in cartoon frogs, as a novel approach in the federal government’s push to get meals to millions more schoolchildren when they need it most.
About 21 million U.S. students receive free or reduced-price lunches during the school year, but only a fraction of them, 3.5 million according to most recent statistics, are fed regularly over the summer.
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