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DIXFIELD — Full Plates Full Potential, Maine’s only statewide childhood hunger organization, recently announced the Oxford County Summer Food Program winner.
Dixfield-based Regional School Unit 56 will receive a $500 Summer Food grant to support its 2019 summer program.
Full Plates inaugural 16 County Competition was launched to highlight the critical work summer food programs do reaching the 82,000 children who qualify for free and reduced price school meals.
RSU 56 is a public school district located in Oxford County. There are approximately 791 students from pre-school through 12th grade. RSU 56 includes three schools and covers the towns of Canton, Carthage, Dixfield and Peru.
“We are so proud of RSU 56’s summer meals program. (Last) summer was the first year they ran a summer meal program, and they served 1,646 meals,” said Anna Korsen, Full Plates Full Potential’s program director. “Summertime is an extremely challenging time for children who are hungry. Our 16-county grant program goal was to showcase and reward the best of summer programs across our state.”
“We have tremendous need in our schools, nearly 60% of our students are eligible for free school meals” said Debbie Nokes, School Nutrition Director for RSU 56. “During the summer months, many of those children don’t know where their next meal will come from, and serving summer lunches is critical to their well-being.”
Maine has 123 Summer Food Service Programs with 450 meal sites across the state. In 2018, 727,238 summer meals were served statewide.
Started in 2015, Full Plates Full Potential is Maine’s only statewide child hunger organization. Full Plates Full Potential does its work by partnering with other hunger relief organizations, granting funds and providing technical support to schools and nonprofits and working with chefs, businesses and others to end child hunger. Visit www.fullplates.org.
