'Making a difference'

Bloomington schools may be out for the summer, but children from low income housing are still receiving free meals.\nThe annual breakfast program sponsored by Community Kitchen of Monroe County, Inc. began Monday, which also coincides with National Hunger Awareness Day. The program, now in its sixth year, provides breakfast to children in low income housing units who are on federal school meal programs and are without school breakfast and lunch during the summer months.\n"The program fills a really important need," said Julio Alonso, director of Community Kitchen. "It's really disturbing that over 3,000 children in Monroe County are at risk of hunger in the summer."\nLast year's program provided over 11,000 meals to kids -- an average of over 200 meals per day. Breakfasts consist of milk or juice, cereal, fresh fruit and yogurt. Food is supplied primarily by the Hoosier Hills Food Bank and other local organizations. The program relies heavily on contributions, and community members are encouraged to donate breakfast foods including juice boxes, cereal and breakfast bars.\n"The meals are delivered 'ice cream truck style' at six different locations in the county," Alonso said. "We have gotten a lot of good feedback and the kids definitely love the meals."\nDan Taylor, assistant director at the Hoosier Hills Food Bank said they are holding and storing breakfast-type food for the Community Kitchen. Taylor said the Hoosier Hills Food Bank's mission is to collect food for different organizations.\n"Members of our generous community have already donated items such as individual cereal boxes and granola bars to us," Taylor said.\nTaylor said he is happy to participate in this program which works to address the issue of hunger in the area.\n"We chose to make people aware that this is a situation where so many are home hungry during the summer due to limited incomes," Taylor said.\nIn addition to providing food for individuals during the summer months, Community Kitchen also gives food to Girl's Inc. Marilyn Ketcham, office manager at Girl's Inc., picks up breakfast for the girls every morning from Community Kitchen.\n"The breakfast helps keep the girls energized throughout the day and it gives the families one less thing to worry about in the morning," Ketcham said.\nCommunity Kitchen was established in 1983 and serves free, nutritional meals to anyone in need with no fees or eligibility requirements.\nThe mission of Community Kitchen is "To work alone and in collaboration with others to eliminate hunger in Monroe County, through direct feeding services, education and advocacy." Community Kitchen has served over 65,000 meals in the last five years.\nAlonso said hunger is a growing problem in the county and there has been a 56 percent increase in meals provided by Community Kitchen the past two years.\n"It's more of a problem than many of us realize," Alonso said. "We are only reaching a tiny fraction of children, but we are confident that this program is making a difference in the lives of the children and their families"