You’ve heard of a food truck, but have you ever heard of a grub bus?
Goshen Local Schools will have a new way to provide meals to hungry students this summer as the new Goshen Grub Bus begins rolling in June.
The bus is the brainchild of the Goshen food services department, which prepares 5,800 breakfasts and 7,100 lunches weekly for students. More than 50 percent of Goshen students qualify for free and reduced-price meals, and it is known that many of these students may not have ready access to food when they are not at school.
Food Services Director Brooke Huhn had been trying to come up with a solution to feed students during the summer months when buses aren’t running.
“Kids don’t live close enough to the schools if their parents are working during the summer,” Huhn said. “I was a free lunch student and I know what that meant to me.”
A conversation with a colleague led to the idea of a food truck-type service. Goshen’s own Petermann Bus Service said they could donate an end-of-service-life bus, and after that, Huhn said, things began to snowball.
Sponsors signed on to help and Huhn received several donations. The bus interior has now been modified and a donated generator will power food warmers, a milk cooler and a freezer. Sponsor dollars also helped pay for the wrap that changed the bus from school yellow to Goshen red.
When the program launches on June 3, meals will be prepared and packaged in the kitchen at Marr/Cook Elementary. The Grub Bus will follow a similar menu as the regular school year, with familiar entrees and servings of fruits and vegetables in each meal. A handful of Goshen kitchen staff members and bus drivers have signed on to help with deliveries, Huhn said. Huhn is even working to get a commercial driver’s license so she can help drive the bus, too.
A schedule is still being finalized, but the Grub Bus is expected to make a circuit of stops in the Woodville, Green Acres, Fay Gardens, Lakeshore, Meadowview neighborhoods. It will run Monday through Thursday beginning June 3 and ending July 25. Any child 18 and under can walk up to the bus and walk away with a lunch for that day and breakfast for the next.
Huhn said it is important that the program is sustainable for the young people it serves and also financially feasible. She pointed out that no Goshen district operating dollars were used to make the bus a reality.
“The food services budget is completely separate from the district’s. We receive separate state and federal funding for our operations,” she said. Because the Goshen district is considered a rural district by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the food services department will be fully reimbursed for the cost of meals.