The school district is offering free school breakfast and lunches to all enrolled hybrid students K-12 until Dec. 22 or until the federal program is discontinued. The meals are provided through the Summer Food Service Program.

One of the reasons the district has decided to partner with the Summer Food Service Program is to end the stigma with taking a meal.

¨There’s a lot of different families that are experiencing hardships related to COVID and job loss,¨ Director of Food Services Megan Barnard said. ¨There’s also just the inconvenience that families are working through with having hybrid learning models, so if we can […] remove some of the barriers for our students to get fed, or [make it easier for] parents to conveniently provide food for students, then that is our goal.¨

If you would like to take a school breakfast or lunch home with you for your next remote days, you can pick a meal up at the a la carte in the cafeteria or near the Lecture Hall. Nutrislice is the app the district will use for you to pre-order your meals.

¨We will serve you if you come, but we would like students to order their meals through Nutrislice,¨ Barnard said. ¨You can download it on your phone by just searching ´Nutrislice´ and then searching ´Maize´. […] Then there’s a little plus sign next to the entree that you can add it to your cart. It´ll ask you to form an account and put in your student ID number. That’s the checkout process and that just gives us a heads up of how many to make.¨

There are 20 new breakfast items and 36 new lunch items being offered this year.

¨We’re offering some different salads, wraps and sandwiches,¨ Barnard said. ¨We have some new baked items so we have chocolate chip banana bread, […] no-bake cookies, and then we’re adding in some Asian entrees that were something we hadn’t had in the past. Some tangerine chicken and teriyaki chicken. We’re also trying Nashville Hot tacos this year. [For breakfast], we’re doing some overnight oats and smoothies and some yogurt parfaits. We have coffee coolers, and we’re offering some coffee drinks at the cart.¨

All of these options will be available to take home during remote days for hybrid students and for the weekend when it is scheduled on the menu.

¨I think it is a really cool opportunity because people who don’t normally qualify for the free and reduced meals are able to [get free meals now] now, which is a big help to their family,” junior Claire Staggs said.