Estimated read time: 1-2 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
FORT SMITH, Ark. (AP) — School officials in some small western Arkansas districts are looking for ways to replace the pending loss of a program that provided food at no cost to needy students during weekends.
The Arkansas Rice Depot told districts in Crawford, Franklin, Johnson, Logan, Scott and Sebastian counties that it will eliminate on Jan. 1 its backpack program that provides food for students to take home in backpacks each Friday.
Lamar schools Superintendent Roy Hester said replacing the program in his approximately 100-student district would cost about $300 a week.
"That's a chunk for us to come up with," Hester told The Times Record (http://bit.ly/1z2mpMW ).
The newspaper reported that the Rice Depot said in an email to the districts that it's focusing on increasing the impact of its food distribution and that it considered the availability of other hunger relief organizations in those areas.
Lavaca School District Superintendent Steve Rose said that although his student backpack program will likely now fade, students will still receive weekend meals through the Meals For Kids program administered by the Community Services Clearinghouse in Fort Smith.
"We think this program will be sufficient to meet our needs," Rose said.
In Clarksville, where 70 percent of the 2,680 students receive free or reduced-priced meals based on family income, the future of weekend meals for students is unclear.
"We're trying to figure out how we're going to continue meeting the needs of those kids," Superintendent David Hopkins said. "We're working with our local churches. They've stepped up. But we don't know exactly where we're going to end up."
___
Information from: Southwest Times Record, http://www.swtimes.com/
Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
