Tigard-Tualatin schools expand summer food service program

By Christina Cooke

The Times, Aug 13, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

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For a school to qualify for the federal money needed to provide the service, more than half of its regular student population must be eligible for free-and-reduced lunches. For apartment complexes to qualify, residents must meet a similar income requirement.

The Beaverton School District serviced the apartment sites last year while the Tigard-Tualatin program found its legs.

Wylie said she’s grateful that Beaverton was able to feed the apartment residents before Tigard-Tualatin was able, “but they’re in our district, they’re our students, and it makes more sense for the district they live in to feed them.”

In the Metzger Elementary cafeteria on Thursday morning, Janet Robrecht waved good-bye to her 7-year-old son Dylan as he filed away for a summer-school class. Then she waited with her four youngest children as they finished their breakfasts.

“It’s so nice they have this breakfast for the public,” Robrecht said.

She said her children look forward to eating foods they don’t normally get at home.

“Dylan eats more variety here than he does at home,” she said, saying he’ll eat a corndog at Metzger but won’t consider it at his own dinner table. “We don’t do chocolate milk (at home), and juice, we don’t do very often either.”

Because the troubled economy is increasing the number of students who qualify for free-and-reduced lunches, Wylie expects the Tigard-Tualatin summer feeding program to expand even further next year. It will probably serve an additional school and apartment complex, likely 300 to 500 more students per day, she said.

The program, Wylie said, “seems to be working really, really well.”

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