Most students eagerly count down the remaining days until they can rush home for summer vacation.
Instead of morning math, it’s morning cartoons.
Instead of afternoon P.E., it’s a matinee movie.
Instead of school, it’s biking around their neighborhoods or spending time at home.
But, for nearly 500 students in Federal Way Public Schools, summertime is not that carefree, and “school’s out for summer” takes on a different meaning.
It’s because those 491 students in Federal Way are currently homeless.
Last month, Federal Way Public School officials announced an increase of homeless youth in their school system.
Yet, in 20 days, those students won’t be guaranteed free breakfast and lunch from the school district’s free and reduced lunch program. They won’t have the same access to counselors, family liaisons and school outreach coordinators. And while some will find places to stay, as they have throughout the school year, others will struggle.
Tracy Oster, the CEO of Communities In Schools Federal Way, said their school outreach coordinators do their best to set youth up with resources and options for the summer before the end of the school year.
“We make sure they are aware of the summer food program and locations,” she said. “If they are old enough, we help them get work. For the kids the coordinators are super-concerned about, we make sure they have the contact information for our year-round office staff.”
Oster said the Communities In Schools office has food, hygiene items and clothes, but getting to the office can also be a challenge in itself – arranging a ride, figuring out bus routes and/or finding the money to take the bus can be obstacles.
“For many of us, growing up and having summers off was a welcomed break and often a lot of fun,” Oster said. “However, for many of our scholars, it’s the longest two months of the year, and they can’t wait to get back to school.”
Decatur High School teacher Laurie Beaver agrees summertime is a challenge for these students. She and other teachers worry every year.
“It’s a problem,” she said. “It scares us to death because what are we gonna do?”
Beaver said she tries to help homeless students find jobs, but said they face the same transportation challenges as those who could go to the Communities In Schools office do.
So, some programs come to them.
SUMMER SERVICES
This summer, the school district will offer FRED (Fun, Read, Eat and Dream), a big green school bus that will be taken to six sites in Federal Way June 27 through July 28. The FRED program includes free healthy meals and activities for children under 18 years old.
During that same time and the rest of the summer, the Multi-Service Center offers the Summer Meals program as a way to replace free and reduced meals at school during the summertime. Terri Turner, the food and clothing bank director for the center, said that program is available to children age 2 through 18 and works in a similar way that FRED does. Up to six Americorps volunteers from United Way help put together meals while two van drivers deliver to various sites.
“Last year, we had 10 sites,” Turner said. “We’re hoping to have 11 to 12 this year.”
Some of those sites are centered around low-income housing, such as Villa Capri Apartments and Kings Court subsidized housing, but they also provide meals at the libraries on South 320th Street and First Way South.
“There are a lot of kids that might get some other meal at home, but some don’t,” Turner said. “It’s the only for-sure meal they have every day.”
The Summer Meals program will run Monday through Friday from June 28 to Aug. 31. The Multi-Service Center will release its final schedule as soon as it is complete.
Last year, Turner said they served 17,644 meals or snacks, which are funded through the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.
Turner said there are guidelines for each meal, which usually don’t include food that would be considered unhealthy.
“We don’t do cookies and stuff like that because they’re hard to fit in the meal pattern,” she said. “If we do give extra treats, [like] Otter Pops, it’s after they’ve had their meal.”
In order for it to count, children and teens must consume the meals onsite, and, unfortunately, adults cannot partake.
“Teenagers are the hardest to serve because they don’t want to eat lunch with the little kids,” Turner said. “The majority of the kids we see are elementary school age, except for the teen center.”
The Multi-Service Center partners with the Boys & Girl Club’s Ex3 Ron Sandwith Teen Center to deliver its meals.
Mark Hendricks with the Boys & Girls Club said they’ll begin offering their Summer Sack Program beginning June 26 through Aug. 25 as a way to provide a free sack lunch to teens. Their lunches will be offered from 11:30 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Also, for children and teens who are homeless, Hendricks said scholarships are available for membership to the club or teen center. An annual membership costs $50.
“We’re looking for wrap-around services for all of these kids, even those who aren’t homeless, ” Hendricks said.
Turner said she’s trying to set up a garden utilizing a truck that someone donated last summer. The truck was vandalized and in need of a drainage system but is repaired and would make a great activity, she said.
“Kids can mess with the truck and see things growing,” she said, adding that she hopes cherry tomatoes and other produce like peas can grow in the truck’s bed or on a lattice. “I’m excited about it.”
While Turner is looking forward to the work the Multi-Service Center does to help youth this summer, the sobering reality that more are homeless is hard to ignore.
In running the center’s numbers from January to April, Turner reported 731 households needed the center’s street bags. Of those, 430 requested the bags for the first time, 21 were for children under 2 years old, 155 were for people between 3 and 18 years old, for a total of 176 youth in need of street bags. Street bags are for people who lack cooking facilities and are living unsheltered.
Editor’s note: Read more about the increase of homeless youth in Federal Way in last week’s edition of the Mirror. The online version can be found here.
The Multi-Service Center is still in need of food, such as Cheez-Its, for its Summer Meals program, which feeds children under 18 during the summer months when children aren’t in school. RAECHEL DAWSON, the Mirror
