CHRISTIANSBURG, Va. – For students at Christiansburg Middle School, just because you missed breakfast before school doesn’t mean you don’t eat.
“They learn better with full bellies,” said Michelle Knotts, supervisor of school nutrition. “In about 5 minutes, we serve close to 100 kids from this cart.”
Leaders in Montgomery County have started a second-chance breakfast option. It’s a way to give kids another opportunity to get both meals offered during the school day.
“My team brings this cart out every morning after the first class bell rings,” Knotts said. “Primarily for kids that may not have gotten to school timely for whatever reason, kids that just maybe aren’t hungry when they first wake up.”
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The meal includes an entree, fruit, snack bar, and a milk on the side.
Knotts said the idea has been around for a long time, and this year it was put into action.
“The first day I think we served less than 10 kids. I think we served 9 kids from the cart,” said Knotts. “It was new, they weren’t sure, and fast forward like I said we are almost doing 100 kids now,” Knotts said.
For students like Caleb Haley, it’s an option they didn’t have before this year.
Cafeteria manager for the middle school, Theresa Hinkley, said while it’s been a learning curve to get the program running smoothly, she knows how much this helps the students at the school.
“The breakfast program here at this school has more than doubled what we normally fed before,” said Hinkley.
They said the goal now with the grant money from No Kid Hungry is to expand the program to other schools in the district.
Other schools in the region that also received grant money from No Kid Hungry for similar programs are Salem City Schools and Roanoke City Public Schools.
