At the beginning of the Covid-19 shut-down, the Garrard County School District decided to offer school lunches for students every day until school was officially ended in May. 1100 students were receiving lunches at 5 sites. The daily lunches also included a breakfast meal for the following morning. Our fairly new Food Service Director was pleased and surprised when offered assistance by the Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Agent and the Nutrition Education Program Assistant in the form of twice weekly packets of recipes, puzzles, informational fact sheets, etc. for each of the students receiving the lunches. 

Currently twenty-two packets have been distributed to students and parents since March 30. That works out to over 100,000 copies of pages created and distributed. The plan soon expanded to provide lunches through the summer until school starts again in-person. Although a major commitment, it was decided to continue the packets through June, twice a week and then once a week starting in July until school starts.  

An evaluation of the packets and information included is currently going on with a qualtrics survey accessed by QR codes, it is known from comments from school personnel and a few parents that the packets have been a tremendous success and something looked forward to receiving by students and parents alike. 

Creating each packet to include fun along with educational facts, this has been a joint effort with the school personnel that is new because of Covid-19 shut-down. We hope to continue the effort until school resumes and there is no longer a need, but also want to acknowledge the new relationship with lunch-room workers, school administrators and school board office personnel. Many of whom have expressed gratitude for the effort.