Feed Store starts weekly lunches
By Donnie A. Lucas
The first weekly luncheon provided by The Feed Store to juniors and seniors was served on Tuesday to a total of 48 students.
Feed Store executive director Tisha Wilkins was pleased with the number of students who attended.
“We had a great turnout,” she said. “We are hoping that it will continue to grow, but for the first week, we felt good about the numbers.”
According to first-day enrollment figures, there are 33 juniors and 34 seniors this year.
The local youth ministry will provide the weekly meals during August and September, with area churches taking a month during the remainder of the school year.
Wilkins and one board member were present this week to help serve the lunch, but she is hoping to have more participation by adults.
“Right now, we are without a youth director ourselves, and two of our more active youth ministers in town recently left,” Wilkins said. “We could really use some folks to greet the students as they come in, as well as helping serve the food.”
The high school lunch period is from 12:35 until 1:10 p.m. this school year.
“We don’t have a lot of time to welcome them and get them fed, so it can get hectic with just a couple of people,” she said. “There are usually a couple of volunteers or more when the churches take over preparing the meal, but we can always use more help.”
The meals are typically prepared in the facility’s commercial kitchen, so help is also appreciated to help clean up afterwards.
“Usually the local youth ministers help meet with the kids and help us clean up,” she said.
Wilkins added that she is also trying to get more students involved with other activities during the week with Bible study and game nights.
“I’m trying to engage students to be more involved so we can offer more activities,” she said. “We used to have something going two or three nights per week.”
Activities have traditionally been held for high school and junior high students separately.
Wilkins said that churches are currently signed up for the months of October through April, with the Feed Store also taking over for the final month in May.
