(CBS DETROIT) – During the school year, countless students rely on free school meals, making food accessibility more difficult during the summer months.
“What kids can do on certain days, certain times, certain locations: they can come in, they can get a meal. They can have breakfast, they can have lunch, depending on what’s going on, enjoy a meal and then go back to going to play house or whatever they have to do that day,” said Mandy Sosnowski, food and nutrition director for Utica Community Schools.
Utica Community Schools is a school district in Metro Detroit that is feeding children this summer through its summer meal program.
Sosnowski has been in her role for about eight years and sees the demand for meals growing year after year, not just during the summer when school is out, but even during the weekends.
“We also see this during our school days when we return from a long break on Monday. They come back, the children are hungry because they know this could be their only meal for the day. So they want to eat. Then they’re ready to go on Friday, they’re trying to get as much food in as possible because sometimes they don’t know where their next meal might come from,” Sosnowski said.
A full list of summer meal locations reaches multiple areas of Macomb County.
The nonprofit Gleaners Community Food Bank of Wayne County has also started its “Hunger Free Summer” summer food service program. This includes numerous locations in Wayne and Macomb County through both fixed meal and mobile sites. These locations can be found below:
Wayne County stationary meal locations
- Everything for Love Foundation
- Avengers youth counseling
- Cesar Chavez Academy Elementary
- Cesar Chavez Academy Intermediate
- Cesar Chavez Academy High School
- Charles H. Wright Museum
- City of Highland Park (Ernest Ford)
- Conant Ave. United Methodist Church-Freedom School
- David Elllis Academy West
- Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences
- Leadership Academy of Detroit
- Deaf Academy of Detroit
- Hanley International Academy
- Hope from Detroit Elementary
- Hope at Detroit Middle/High School
- Martin Luther King, Jr. Education Center Academy
- New city kids Detroit
- People’s Baptist Church
- SEED (Seeding Empowerment and Economic Development)
- The Yunion-Keys 2 Life Performing Arts Summer Camp
- Trillium Academy
- Voyager Academy
Wayne County Cell Sites
- Brewster Houses
- Demby Terraces – Moore
- Demby Terraces – Hickory
- Diggs Homes (DHC Envision Center)
- Eden Gardens
- Emerald Springs mansions
- Fairview mansion
- Lemoyne Gardens
- Martin Luther King Apartments
- McCoy Mansions
- Smith Huizen
- Sojourner Truth
- St. Aubin Square
- Villages at Parkside
Macomb County Stationary Meals
- Warren Academy
- The Salvation Army
