Mercy Health donates to Lima schools meal program
Feb. 5—LIMA — Mercy Health presented a $50,000 donation to Lima schools at Wednesday's mayoral press briefing to go toward a weekend meal box for students to ensure have food over the weekend.
Lima superintendent Jill Ackerman said students will be able to walk out of school with six pre-packaged, ready-made nutritious meals every Friday at Freedom Elementary School.
"'Nutritious' was a key word for us," Ackerman said. "It's a peace of mind for us to know they will be fed over the weekend, and it's a relief for parents with rising food costs. It's also a peace of mind for the children to know when they're home, they're going to have some food that helps them stay healthy, and hopefully, it helps keep them on track with their grades and attendance."
Tyler Smith, Mercy Health's director of community health, said the donation, which will go through a program run by the Children's Hunger Alliance, is important to address one of the biggest needs the healthcare provider sees in patients all the time, food insecurity.
"It's mirroring what we're seeing within the hospital, and we know it's trickling out within the community," he said. "So we're thankful to have good partners like CHA and Lima schools. We've been pretty successful with the program we started in Leipsic a few years ago, and we know that the need was pretty drastic here in Lima."
The CHA is a statewide non-profit that works to ensure food-insecure children get meals and started the same program with Mercy Health at Leipsic Elementary School in December 2022.
"In the past year, over half a million kids in Ohio go to bed food insecure, which means they don't know where their next meal is going to come from," CHA regional director Jamie Harter said. "During the school year, a food insecure child can get three meals each of those five days they are in school every week, but they might not see food when the weekend hits."
Mercy Health said more than 18,000 meals have been distributed to students at Leipsic Elementary, where the CHA offers meal boxes two weeks every month.
Meal boxes come from a vendor in Bucyrus and will number at 1,440 meals per weekend.
The program started October 2021 at Moler Elementary School in Columbus.
For more information on the CHA, visit ch-alliance.org.
Reach Jacob Espinosa at 567-242-0399.
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