Salvation Army, NCSD and Newton Public Library are making sure no kid goes hungry this summer

Between the Salvation Army preparing food boxes for families who enroll in the Healthy Kids Iowa program, the school district packing the high school circle drive with cars awaiting Grab & Go meals and the library offering free snacks for kids and teens throughout the week, no kid should go hungry this summer.

Ed Poe, the food pantry coordinator for the Salvation Army in Newton, said about 380 families have received Healthy Kids Iowa food boxes this past month. The boxes are packed full of nutritional foods such as fruits, vegetables, grains and proteins, and they are available anytime June, July and August.

Families do not have to pre-register before arriving at a distribution site for the Healthy Kids Iowa program. Salvation Army staff said individuals do have to fill out a brief form to disclose their income and how many people reside in their household. When the form is completed, they can receive a box immediately.

“We put the food boxes together for them,” Poe said in an interview with Newton News. “…I’m not surprised we saw 380 people sign up, but I thought we would have more. The first Friday we did it we had 127 people. We’ve had some off and on since then, but then last Friday we did 141.”

In order to be eligible for Healthy Kids Iowa, households must be at 185 percent or below the Federal Poverty Level, have children ages 4-18 or have already self-attested to eligibility for The Emergency Food Assistance Program with children aged 4-18. The food boxes are no cost to families.

Outside of the Healthy Kids Iowa distributions, Poe said the Salvation Army is seeing a lot of activity. The amount of regular food boxes he hands out have increased, signifying to him that there is food insecurity in the community and a need for families to reach out to places even outside of the Salvation Army.

Jasper County school districts all face some level of food insecurity.

In Newton, about 50.48 percent of students in the 2024-2025 school year were eligible for free-and-reduced lunch. Meanwhile, about 39.55 percent of students are eligible in Colfax-Mingo, 32.66 are eligible in Baxter, 25.35 are eligible in Lynnville-Sully and 24.09 are eligible in PCM, according to state data.

Knowing that meals during the summer may be difficult for many families, the Newton Community School District organized Grab & Go meals at specific pickup times this past month. Each child gets five breakfasts and five lunches every week. The next pickups will be 9 a.m.-1 p.m. July 3, 10, 17, 24.

Only parents and guardians are allowed to pick up the meals. The school district requires families to sign up for the Grab & Go meals via ParentSquare and indicate the total number of children who will be receiving meals. For any more information, contact Julie Miller at millerj@newton.k12.ia.us.

Summer school students also receive lunches 11 a.m.-noon every weekday at Emerson Hough Elementary School.

Newton Public Library offers free snacks for kids and teenagers up to age 18 at 1-2 p.m. any weekday the facility is open until July 31. Kids have to be present to receive their snack. Library Director Nicole Terry said this is the first summer the library has worked with the school district to provide a snack to kids.

“While the library has and will continue to do a great job in meeting the educational and entertaining quality-of-life needs for children in the community, we saw a gap in the nutritional, hunger needs that we were unable to fill,” Terry told Newton News.

The library partnered with the school district and purposefully chose an afternoon time slot so children had ample opportunity to pick up their snack.

“So far, 593 children have received snacks, and we look forward to serving more in July,” Terry said. “This is a program that we will bring back next summer with hopes that the use continues to grow. We love seeing happy smiles from our old and new friends picking up snacks.”