Free Brown Bag Lunch Club Serves All

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Category: Local News

Created on Tuesday, 18 June 2024 15:11

By SHANNON HAUGLAND
Sentinel Staff Writer
    Two Sitka organizations are making sure kids in the Sitka Parks and Recreation day camps are well-focused –– and well-fortified -- when they start their afternoon activities.
    The new Brown Bag Lunch Club, sponsored by the Sitka Conservation Society, and organized by the city’s Parks and Rec program, gives all the boys and girls an option for snacks and lunches on weekday afternoons.
    At the same time, the Conservation Society sponsors a once-a-week free lunch at the Sitka Public Library. The Summer Snack Grab N Go Program runs 10 to 11:30 a.m. Wednesdays through August 7.
    “I’m happy everything that we originally planned is coming to fruition,” said Alan Razzie Doulphus, an Americorp volunteer with Parks and Rec, which hand out lunches at the Blatchley Middle School cafeteria window.
    In the first week of the parks program, some 175 lunches or snacks were handed out, Doulphus said.
    The Lunch Club program is part of the Parks and Rec six-week afternoon summer camp, in which kids ages 6 through 12 can choose from a variety of camps for arts, sports and outdoor activities.
     Many of the kids arrive for lunch after morning activities run by Sitka Fine Arts Camp, SCS and Sitka Sound Science Center, including swim classes, gymnastics, other rec programs, or time with family or childcare provider.
    Doulphus met before the season began with leaders of other programs to set up the lunch program.
    “It was an original idea,” Doulphus said. “‘Let’s provide a half day (activity) but they’ll be hungry when they get here. If we give them some sort of sustenance they’ll have a better day.’”
    The main partner in the Brown Bag Lunch Club is Sitka Conservation Society, which gave Parks & Rec $4,000 in funds remaining from their Mutual Aid initiative during the Covid-19 pandemic.
    At Parks & Rec, the food is prepared by three Americorps members, all state-certified in food preparation and safety. Typical lunches are turkey or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, watermelon, carrots, and mandarin oranges, with options for those with food allergies. There’s no requirement to demonstrate need.
    “As long as they’re here, they’re getting food,” Doulphus said. He said the free lunch idea came from his two and half years as lead teacher with Catholic Charities in San Francisco, which ran summer and after-school activities programs for kids.
    “It opened my eyes to the great need of providing food; we did the same thing there,” Doulphus said. “We were able to get funding to feed the kids and their families, because many didn’t have access to food. There are a lot of food deserts in the city. They would come in, it was a fresh meal every day –– they could eat there or take the food home, which was a nice aspect.”
    Doulphus reached out to SCS for funding ideas, and was offered some of its Mutual Aid funds, which come from grants and contributions to support food security and have low barriers to access.
    “We’re also excited to try this as a pilot program to see what it takes to run the program this year, so we can try to find sustainable support for it in the future,” said Chandler O’Connell, Conservation Society sustainable community catalyst.
    The bonus for Parks and Rec programmings is that the kids, after eating, are ready to learn and take part in a busy afternoon of exercise and activities, which today included a visit to the University of Alaska Southeast whale lab to see whale bones and learn about Sitka Sound sea life.
    “It goes back to the basic needs of children,” Doulphus said. “They need role models, they need a safe space, they need food –– without it they’re hungry, they’re ‘hangry.’ Food is a pillar of their lives. They need the calories to stay powered, to stay awake. We see more ‘behaviors’ in kids who haven’t eaten, and when they do have food they’re much more engaged for a longer period.”
    The feedback so far has been very positive, with many thanks from the parents, both for the Parks and Rec program and the food offerings the library.
    SCS staff members said they were pleased to find a good use of the Mutual Aid funds in a program that serves hundreds. Doulphus said about 100 kids are signed up for camps –– 50 in each three-week session –– and noted families benefit as well, since Conservation Society and Parks and Rec have taken over the cost of lunch for the kids in the camps.
    “Through community programs and partnerships like these, we work to directly invest in people’s wellbeing and tackle food insecurity,” SCS said in a statement.
    The SCS-sponsored Snack Grab N Go Program, for children, tweens and teens, is in its fifth year at the library, and provides free to-go bags with healthy snacks 10 to 11:30 a.m. every Wednesday.
    Library Director Jessica Ieremia said the program, coordinated by children’s librarian Maite Lorente, elicits smiles and enthusiasm from the kids picking up their brown bags.
    “A lot of kids sit outside with their families on the benches (after getting their snack),” Ieremia said. The program fits in well with all the summer reading programs at the library, she added.
    “Kids don’t learn well on an empty stomach,” she said. “For kids to read and learn they need to not be hungry.”