The Lima City Schools is opening food pantries in three of its school buildings.
The announcement came at a Feb. 15 news conference and ribbon-cutting ceremony in the pantry at Unity Elementary School.
The effort is in partnership with the West Ohio Food Bank. The agency will help provide food that will be in the pantries.
Pantries will be located inside Unity, Freedom and Heritage elementary schools. Staff at those schools will reach out to students they know are in need of food to take home. Staff from other school buildings may also use the pantries to help students who are identified as being in need from their buildings.
This initiative is the latest effort on the part of the Lima City Schools to become a full-service school system meeting as many needs as possible for students.
“We already have a health center, serve breakfast and lunch at no cost and have social workers/guidance counselors at each of our schools to connect students to services in our community,” Superintendent Jill Ackerman said. “We are no longer able to secure the funding for the Friday food bags that we sent home with students for the past several years. The West Ohio Food Bank stepped up and offered to help us start these food pantries at no cost to the school.”
Several other partners are making this new initiative possible. Those include:
Lima Pallet, offering a truck to deliver food to the pantries.
Rightway Food Services, offering items to be used in the pantries.
Allied Environmental, donated refrigerator.
Sally Windle, donated refrigerator.
Jessica Snay, donated refrigerator.
The school district will on various occasions ask families to give back by bringing in food for the pantries or by donating to the West Ohio Food Bank.