PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. — Commissioners in Palm Beach County unanimously voted in favor of a new partnership to help with food insecurity in the area.
The new partnership is between the Palm Beach County Food Bank and the county’s library system. The collaboration will start on April 1 and last for five years.
They’ll be giving out free boxed meals for the whole family over the weekends, when kids are out of school.
Each meal will have two breakfasts, two lunches, a dinner, a full family meal, snacks and drinks.
No word yet on when the distribution will begin, but the director for the library system told WPTV reporter Victor Jorges, they’ll start from the Palm Beach County Main Library Branch.
They recognize students might already get some free meals at school, so this would bridge the gap when kids go home, and parents are struggling to put food on the table.
“The advantage for us working with the food bank is that it opens up an avenue for people to get food a little more locally. Not everyone can easily get to a food bank location, but many people have a library nearby," Palm Beach County Library System Director Douglas Crane said. "There's a lot of families that need it, and part of the reason we do it in the summer, is because many children have access to a free lunch at school, but what do we do when children are out of school?”
Since 2017, they’ve partnered with the school system to provide meals during summer break.
They said they served more than 22,000 meals through that program in the 2023 fiscal year.
According to feeding America, more than 130,000 people in palm beach county struggle with hunger, with nearly 40,000 of them being kids.