Feeding hungry kids, and giving back

REBECCA PLEVIN/Vida en el Valle

(Published Tuesday, June 21st, 2011 08:34AM)

Around 11:30 a.m. last Thursday morning, Carlos Bejarano began passing out free boxed lunches to the group of children who had gathered in Pilibos Park.

The kids then sat down at a shaded picnic table, opened their cartons of fat-free chocolate milk, dug into their salami and cheese sandwiches on whole wheat bread, and played with their raw broccoli.

As Bejarano, 27, watched them, he noted that years ago, he, too, depended on free summer meals.

"I can relate to a lot of the kids over here," said Bejarano, who today is studying social work at Fresno City College. "You come over here and you're hungry, and you just want to get something to eat without worrying about the cost."

"That's essential -- just getting food to these kids."

Bejarano is one of three young men who once benefitted from summer meal programs and are now staffing the Fresno County Economic Opportunities Commission's lunch program at Pilibos Park in southeast Fresno, with the intention of giving back to their community.

The young men are also helping to close the widening gap between the number of low-income children who are eligible for free- and reduced-price meals during the school year, and the number of kids who actually access free, nutritious lunches during the summer.

In July 2010, 15 percent fewer children benefitted from nutritious, federally funded lunches than in 2009, according to California Food Policy Advocates' annual report, 'School's Out... Who Ate?'

The steep decline in summer meal participation can be traced to the limited availability of summer school -- where the bulk of summer meals were once served -- and state budget cuts, according to the report.

In an effort to ensure that low-income kids don't go hungry when school is not in session, more summer meals are now being served at community-based sites, like parks, Boys and Girls Clubs, YMCAs, and churches, through the Summer Food Service Program, according to the report.

That's where Bejarano, and his colleagues, Daniel González, 18, and Ramiro Martínez, 19, come in.

During the hour-long lunch program, Bejarano, González and Martínez shared the duties of handing out cold lunches, tracking the number of meals served, and recruiting other children in the park to participate in the meal program.

That morning they served 32 first lunches and two second meals, but they hope to be feeding as many as 100 low-income children by mid-summer.

"I'm just giving back to the community because, as you can see, this area really needs it," said González, who will earn his high school degree after completing one more semester of classes at a charter school, the EOC's School of Unlimited Learning (SOUL.) He is the site manager of the meal program at Pilibos Park.

He gestured toward the park, which featured a swingset tagged with faded graffiti, a few homeless adults who sat on nearby park benches, next to their shopping carts which were piled high with their belongings, and a grassy field that sparkled with scattered pieces of garbage.

"It's quite needy, and I'm just glad I can help out," he said.

But González wants to do more than feed the youth. By this week, he hopes to also be offering fun and educational activities at the lunch site.

The activities could help reverse the trend of lower-income children losing their academic skills during the summer months, and falling behind in the classroom during the school year.

"Anything from flashcards to just coloring books would work, as long as the material is educational to them in some way, and still entertaining them in a positive way," he said. "It would be great to see more youth coming in."

During a lull in the lunch rush, the young men reminisced about their own experiences with summer meal programs.

"It was good!" González said, recalling the meals he ate at Quigley Park in northwest Fresno. "It was the first meal of the day -- I was happy."

"They used to have this fried chicken I would tear up," said Bejarano, who also attended the program at Quigley Park.

The reminiscing didn't last long, though. Soon, the young men were on the lookout for the families who, just four days into the meal program, had already become regulars.

"We're still waiting for the people with the stroller," Martínez said. "Oh, there they are."

He welcomed, in Spanish, one of the "regular" families he had been waiting for -- Leticia Ramos and her 8-year-old twin daughters, Jasmín Balle and Jocelyn Balle.

Martínez grew up near Bulldog Lane, and said he and his family were not aware of the resources available to low-income families.

This spring, during his last semester at the SOUL charter school, he shadowed employees at the EOC's Sanctuary Outreach to the Streets, which provides street-based services to transient youth. Helping connect youth with the types of valuable services he and his family hadn't frequently accessed has inspired him to pursue a degree in counseling at Fresno City College this fall.

"Before, I really wanted to be a mechanic," Martínez said. "But ever since they put me in that program, this is what I want -- I want to help kids out."

"I felt comfortable doing that, talking to kids and telling them what we can offer to help them. That's what made me really change my career choice."

As the hour-long lunch program wound down, González tallied up the number of meals served, and closed the coolers containing the leftover lunches.

"We did good today," he said. "We started off slow, but we did good."

The young men said goodbye to the children and their parents.

"Muchas gracias por venir," they said, encouraging the kids to come back for the upcoming meals: turkey sandwiches on Friday, and peanut butter and jelly bars on Monday. "Vengan mañana."