Lee Ann Conner, Food Service Director at Jessamine County Schools in Kentucky, is doing everything she can to get kids in her community access to food for the summer. Due to the county’s location bordering Fayette County, home to Lexington, parts of Jessamine County are designated as urban, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). This designation has massive implications for summer feeding, as non-congregate meal programs are only allowed in rural areas. While much of Jessamine county is considered rural, there are still pockets designated as urban that desperately need summer non-congregate feeding. Conner’s passion is palpable, “Why does it matter where a child lives if they are hungry? Why should it matter if they are in an urban district or in a rural district?”
Conner succeeded in obtaining a rural designation from USDA for the Ashgrove community in Jessamine County, delivering meals door-to-door to the students on a weekly basis starting the day after school let out for the Summer to the day before school started back up in the Fall. Conner collaborated with the Family Resource Youth Service Centers located within Rosenwald Elementary, West Jessamine Middle, and West Jessamine High to connect and identify children in need of meals within Ashgrove. Conner would leave seven days worth of breakfasts and lunches at each family’s doorstep, all meals being shelf-stable, as many of the families lack electricity. The response was overwhelming. Each week, more and more families signed up. At the end of this summer, she served 6,864 meals compared to last year’s total of 40 meals served!
To increase staff efficiency and reduce costs, she utilized a third-party vendor, Optimum Foods, to pre-pack meals and deliver them by the pallet to the district, then Conner and another staff member delivered the meals door-to-door. The vast majority of her staff resources were already going towards operating congregate sites throughout the county; therefore, she didn’t have the staff bandwidth to do a full non-congregate program in-house for this one approved location. Before Conner got permission from the Kentucky Department of Education (KDE) to use a third-party vendor, she was procuring the shelf-stable food herself and her already stretched staff were packing the food boxes. The amount of money saved utilizing Optimum Foods was a game changer to Conner’s food service budget and the sustainability of her program.
Conner’s next goal is getting Tates Creek Estates, another high-poverty rural pocket in the county, designated as rural by USDA, so she can deliver non-congregate meals there. The trailer park houses 200 students, 20% of which require special education services. Tates Creek Estates is surrounded by country land, with horse farms across the road. There are no sidewalks, no access to a grocery store, and no safe place for kids to congregate in the community. Yet, even after Conner worked with KDE in March to submit a rural designation for the area, USDA denied the request by July – well into their summer program operations. “We are doing all we can, and we are being told no,” Conner said. No Kid Hungry Kentucky has continued to work with Lee Ann to elevate her concerns to various stakeholders to share this challenge.
With 200 kids living in Tates Creek Estates, there is an opportunity to serve 35,200 meals over the summer. Conner notes that it’s a huge missed opportunity to meet the needs of that community. Without it, those children will miss out to the vital meals that summer food programs provide while school is out for the summer. Lee Ann is continuing to work with advocates, the Department of Education and legislators to push for what is best for her community – ensuring non-congregate summer meals are available and accessible to those who need them.