Partnership provides weekend meals to youths
On a cold Friday morning, Jill Yockey and Michele Feidt stand in front of Center Avenue Community School ready to hand out dozens of meals.
In March, Butler Area School District began to provide children with free meals during the week while schools are closed due to coronavirus restrictions.
Now, Pittsburgh-based PNC made a $1 million donation to the United Way to create the Students and Families Food Relief Fund, which was used to buy dinners from Eat'n Park to help feed children on weekends.
The food was distributed Friday for the first time in Butler County and each bag contained one meal for Friday's dinner and another for Saturday, totaling 3,000 meals for 1,500 students in the school district, according to Amy Franz, the Butler Region director for United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania.
Pickups were made for this program at both the Center Avenue school and the Emily Brittain Community Partnership and Demonstration School.
Franz said the program aims at filling weekend food needs that are not covered by government agencies.
This effort will continue every weekend for now. The meals are not limited to students; they are for anyone 18 and younger. Each meal typically contains chips, a cold cut sandwich and some fresh fruit.
“This helps out families that are already stressed with maybe unemployment. Having not to pay for dinner helps them with their family budget,” Franz said. “We've seen our role here with COVID as far as helping people with emergency basic needs over four focus areas. One of those areas is helping children succeed.
“It's important for families' health that food continues to be accessible.”
She said that the meals also are available in other counties that are covered by United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania.
“This is the first distribution of its kind in Butler County,” Franz said.
The United Way also operates a 2-1-1 helpline that people can use to get a variety of needs met. Calls to the line have doubled recently because of COVID-19, according to a news release from United Way.
