Fresno Unified School District unveils plans for summer meal program

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- Fresno Unified has been providing meals to families since schools were forced to close in mid-March, and that doesn't look to be ending anytime soon.

FUSD Superintendent Bob Nelson announced Tuesday his district would continue the free program through the summer.

The distribution of summer meals begins Monday on a grab and go basis from 8 am to 9:30 am across 22 district sites. Two meals - breakfast and lunch - will be handed out at the same time.

"We get it, times right now are tough. We're trying to do what we can from a humanitarian aid standpoint to partner with local resources in meaningful ways to make life easier for the families of the city of Fresno," Nelson said.

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In addition to the summer meals program for students, Fresno Unified will also work with the Central California Food Bank to provide food boxes to any family or person in need.

"The food bank box is more family nature... it might be pasta or commodities that are larger in scope that families are using to feed for families meals and the like," he said.

Without a coronavirus vaccine, administrators are also grappling with a tough question: what school will look like when classes are supposed to resume this fall?

"We have three scenarios going right now. One with a quarter of our kids coming back or half of them coming back or all of our kids coming back in a safe way and we're toggling between those based on the factors that exist," Nelson said.

While administrators work to devise a plan for safely welcoming the district's 74,000 students back to school in August, they are also asking for parent's feedback in an online survey.

"We recognize that no option going forward is going to be at the universal accolade of everyone involved. This no way to do that without every single person having an opinion about it and those opinions varying as widely as possibly known."

To access that survey, click here.