GREENFIELD — The Greenfield School Department will soon have its own food truck, increasing the district’s ability to offer free, nutritious meals to children across the city.

“I’m very excited about this project,” said Food Service Director Greta Shwachman. “I’ve now had the pleasure of custom-designing two food trucks in my life.”

The food truck, which is expected to arrive by mid-May at the latest, offers the opportunity to serve outdoor lunches during the school year and meals at special events. The truck will also serve as a mobile site for Summer Eats, the annual summer meals program.

“The goal is really to increase participation, and food trucks have become trendy all over the country to get students excited about school meals,” Shwachman said.

Roughly 80% of the funding for the food truck came from a $146,000 Food Security Infrastructure Grant. The rest of the money came from the Greenfield School Department’s food services budget.

Any reimbursable breakfast or lunch served from the food truck will be free under the National School Lunch Program (NSLP) and School Breakfast Program (SBP), according to Shwachman. Greenfield’s public schools participate in the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which allows the district to serve free meals to all students, eliminating the need to collect annual household applications for free and reduced-price meals.

“We’ll be using the food truck as an extension of the cafeteria,” Shwachman said.

On nice days, for example, rather than line up in the cafeteria, students can line up at the food truck.

“This is fully equipped,” she said. “We really have the flexibility to cook in our kitchen and load up the truck, or cook on the truck.”

Through the Summer Eats program, any individual under the age of 18 — regardless of whether they’re a Greenfield resident or a student of the schools — is eligible to receive a free meal. The program typically kicks off in June, after the last day of school. Shwachman estimated that last July, the district served 19,000 breakfasts and lunches.

“Instead of having our staff go out with their own vehicles to multiple meal sites across the city, we’ll be able to load up the truck and create a route that will hit parks and various locations,” she said.

Looking forward, Shwachman said there is an “exciting opportunity” to use the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), a federal program that provides reimbursements for nutritious meals and snacks to eligible children and adults who are enrolled for care at participating child care centers, day care homes and adult day care centers, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“The goal is to use existing federally funded programs that are reimbursable to feed as many kids across the city for free,” she said. “But there are also opportunities for catering, for events, where we’d be able to use institutional buying power, where we buy local foods … and provide affordable meals for adults and the whole family as well.”

Reporter Mary Byrne can be reached at mbyrne@recorder.com or 413-930-4429. Twitter: @MaryEByrne.

]]>