Employees distribute free food for students during a weekly pickup at Fordson High School on June 9. Dearborn Public Schools will continue to distribute food for students over the summer break at the Fordson, Dearborn and Edsel Ford high schools, but the pickup day will move to Thursday starting June 24.
Dearborn Public Schools will distribute free student meals over the summer vacation for the second year in a row.
On Thursday, June 24, the district will start its summer meal distributions June 24. Families of students can pick up food for each of their children Thursdays from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Meals will be distributed at the district’s three traditional high schools: Dearborn, Edsel Ford and Fordson. The food distribution program will continue through Aug. 12.
The district also will serve meals to elementary and middle school students participating in its free in-school summer programs.
Families picking up summer meals at the high schools will be offered either a three-day bag of food, if their child is attending the four-day-a-week summer program, or a seven-day bag of food for those not in the summer program.
Salina Intermediate also will distribute food on Thursdays as part of the summer meal program, but only three-day packs will be available at that location. The Salina distribution will run from 12:30 to 2 p.m. each Thursday.
Food distribution is available for any student or child under 18 years of age. No identification is required, and the student does not need to attend that building or come with the adult picking up the food.
DPS starts the 2021-22 school year on Aug. 30 and plans to have students back in school for full days every day. That means once the new school year starts most students will be able to receive breakfast and lunch at school. At that time, the district will discontinue its broad weekly meal distribution program.
DPS offers free lunch and breakfast to all its students through the Community Eligibility Provision under the National School Lunch Program.
For this school year, June 16 will be the last weekly food distribution at the 10 current locations. The last day of school is June 18. The following week, the summer meal distribution program starts, and distributions move to Thursdays at the three high schools and Salina.
DPS began distributing free student meals just days after Gov. Gretchen Whitmer ordered schools to close in March 2020. Since then, the district has distributed more than 4 million free meals for students.
“We are glad to be able to provide food for our students and families, many of whom we know struggled financially even before the pandemic caused an upheaval in the economy,” Supt. Glenn Maleyko said. “With the expected return of in-school learning next school year, we look forward to educating — and feeding — our students in our schools once again.”