OLD BRIDGE – With remote, online learning in place for the indefinite future, the Old Bridge Township Public School District is providing food services on the go for its students.
Employees of Sodexo, which provides the district’s food service, and district staff deliver the food using 12 school buses and vans from 9:30-10:15 a.m. on a daily basis for students who need the meals. The deliveries began on March 17 after schools closed abruptly due to the novel coronavirus pandemic.
As each day the number of people receiving meals has increased, Schools Superintendent David Cittadino said, For obvious reasons it is important to nourish the district’s students with the foods that they may need during this time.
“It’s equally important to nourish them with elements of normalcy that this may provide like having a bag lunch from school, seeing bus drivers and their cafeteria workers, and knowing we are still there as a school district and we’re willing to go above and beyond for our families in Old Bridge,” Cittadino said.
Lunch and breakfast are available at 40 designated stops throughout the township. A sample menu of a brown bag breakfast includes a bagel, orange juice, and milk and a sample lunch includes yogurt, cheese stick, graham crackers and milk.
For those who use the service, lunch accounts will be charged according to each child’s eligibility for free and reduced meals, as well as full priced meals.
“It’s great we are able to provide meals to anybody who wants them,” said Michelle Feliciano, Sodexo general manager. “I am a little apprehensive about being out and about and around people, but it is part of our job and this is what we do. We do this all year long. Now we’re just doing it in a different way. We usually feed them in the kitchen and now we are feeding them by bus.”
Feliciano said because the schools closed so abruptly, there was additional fresh food available, which was donated to the Old Bridge Food Bank. Any unused food may be donated to the Middlesex County food bank, MCFOODS.
For more information about the food service, call 732-429-8554.