BY MATT LINDSEY
North Country This Week

CANTON -- The need to feed students at Canton Central School remains a priority for school officials, even with the school year officially over.

Each Wednesday, around 600 meal packages are being given out to students in the district.

CCS Superintendent Ron Burke, at the June 18 Board of Education meeting, said the number of prepared meals was short by about a dozen last week and more meals were made to accommodate those students.

“I am very hopeful that the stigma is gone,” Burke said.

He added that whether a family actually gets the free meals or not, the more people that sign up, the more of these programs will be available to the community

The district was still waiting for final approval of the food service plan for summer.

“I am happy to say, with the board's blessing, we should be able to go ahead and do this at no cost to local taxpayers … in fact it will probably be the exact opposite,” the superintendent said.

The food giveaway is free for any child in the district. Even if a child is just living in the community, the child does not need to be a student at CCS, he said. The giveaway provides seven days of breakfast and lunch for a student.

“The financial analysis on it would actually show that this is one of those programs where the district will actually come out ahead of the game both financially and also for the benefit of the children in our district,” he said.

School officials had been working to find a refrigerated truck to keep the food cool enough during this heat wave. A local man in Canton offered a trailer.

Burke said he expected costs to be reasonable and this would still allow the school to avoid any financial losses for running the program.

For now, CCS has been using all coolers they can scrounge up, including borrowing from SUNY Canton and St. Lawrence University.

The coolers are used to store meat, cheese, milk and other food to be given away.

CCS Board President Victor Rycroft asked Burke, “with the possibility of the coolers or the trailers, will that enable the distribution to take place at more than one location?”

Burke said that is what the district is shooting for.

CCS has been holding food distributions since mid-March in eight locations, including one at the school.

“At four of the sites we see a substantial number of walkers … children come over to get their groceries on their own. And then there are a couple of locations where the family just simply doesn’t have a vehicle,” Burke said.

There was a possibility of cutting back on the number of locations of distribution. Having a trailer will allow for a quicker transportation of products to these sites.

“So this is a huge blessing that we were able to find these trailers locally.”

Keeping things local, CCS has been buying its milk from Save-A-Lot, which Burke noted as less expensive than other vendors.

“I just think it’s fabulous we’re able to use Save-A-Lot as a vendor … it’s always nice when you can spend dollars in a local community,” Patrick Hanss, school board member said.

Don’t Miss a Story!
Keep up with local government & schools, police & fire news, help wanted ads, upcoming events, letters from viewers, news of your friends & neighbors, & much more!

Subscribe today for just $1.44 per week