The Willie Mays Boys & Girls Club at Hunter’s Point is serving meals as part of its first youth supper program today, providing dinner to club members and youth community members of San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunter’s Point neighborhood.
The Boys & Girls Club plans to serve the first 60 suppers at 3:30 p.m. today. Five days a week the club will continue to serve two suppers, the first at 3:30 p.m. and the second at 5:30 p.m.
The meals provided by Revolution Foods will include things like barbecue turkey sandwiches, chicken Caesar salads, milk and fruit.
“For most of our kids, they don’t eat during the day. This may be the first and only meal they will have all day. Some kids come in starving,” said Brittany Johnson, spokeswomen for the Boys & Girls Clubs of San Francisco. “This is the first supper program in the city, which is very exciting.”
The new program is part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Child and Adult Care Program and administered by the California Department of Education, Johnson said.
In 2011, the U.S. Department of Agriculture classified the low-income Bayview-Hunter’s Point neighborhood as a “food desert”, because only 60 percent of residents live within a quarter mile of a grocery store, far below the city average of 84 percent, Johnson said.
“A lot of our kids and families eat junk food because it’s more accessible. They had never heard of cucumbers or kale,” Johnson said.
Hannah Albarazi, Bay City News
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