MILTON — Brinley Rautenberg,12, and her mom, Sherry, busied themselves last Thursday morning at Milton United Methodist Church, prepping ham and cheese tortilla roll ups for the School District of Milton’s Summer Lunch Bunch program.
Summer Lunch Bunch offers students in the School District of Milton lunch during summer break.
The program kicked off on June 10 and will continue until Aug. 30. Pickup locations are Milton United Methodist Church, 241 Northside Drive, and North Goodrich Park, 20 Parkview Drive, from 11:15 a.m. to 12 p.m., Monday through Thursday. Thursday’s pickup will include Friday’s meal.
Nearly 200 lunches are being prepared for each pickup.
On Thursday morning, June 13, volunteers packed fruit cups, Mac and cheese, canned vegetables, Rice Krispy bars and water into red Piggly Wiggly bags, while others prepped the ham and cheese roll ups and grapes.
Rock County Christian School student Elizabeth Bales, 16, was volunteering with her mom, Lynn Bales, a special education teacher at Northside Intermediate School in Milton, also helping to make the roll ups.
Elizabeth set up each tortilla on a piece of foil before handing it to Brinley Rautenberg who added the meat and cheese. Sherry Rautenberg then finished rolling them up.
This is the Bales family’s second year volunteering for the program.
“I enjoy volunteering,” Elizabeth said. Lynn Bales said she had a great time last year so she decided to come back.
Other volunteers included students who are a part of the Milton High School Silver Cord program. Students can graduate with silver cords after volunteering for 200 hours.
District staff were also helping.
Sherry Rautenberg, a school district social worker, said it’s right up her alley to help with food insecurity.
Julia Garczynski, director of student services, volunteered for the first time this year. She helped cut grapes with Lynn Bales and Ashton Gouvion, the school district’s occupational therapist.
The Summer Lunch Bunch is a collaboration between the School District of Milton and several Milton churches including Milton United Methodist Church, Hope Lutheran Church and Seventh-Day Adventist Church.
The program relies on volunteers from the main three churches, along with teachers from the school district and student volunteers. It is seeking more support from the community to continue providing meals all summer long.
“Several other churches in town have donated and our goal is to really make it a community wide effort,” Hope Lutheran Church committee member Brenda O’Beirne said.
The program has received a $3,000 grant from the Milton fund, to help support the summer needs. Contact O’Beirne at obeirneb@uww.edu to donate or volunteer, or for more information.
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