UPTON – The Blackstone Valley Vocational Regional School District (BVT) is the proud recipient of a $75,000 Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry grant. The funding will allow BVT to take its Drive-up Meal Service off-campus and on the road, expanding access to nutritious school meals through a new Meal Delivery Service. The program is open to all BVT students during the 2020–2021 school year.

Whether students are on campus or in distance learning, having continued access to nutritious meals is vital to their health and wellbeing. Childhood hunger can have a devastating and long-lasting effect on a child’s physical, emotional, and academic wellbeing. The free Meal Delivery Service addresses issues of food access and economic inequalities many students face during the COVID-19 pandemic by utilizing their School Based Health Center to support the needs of its students enrolled in the program.

The delivery service provides a more convenient, user-friendly meal distribution plan for students, as they, or their parents, will no longer have to commute to pick-up the meals at BVT. This program removes the most prominent financial/transportation barriers to ensure students with the greatest need for food receive nutritious meals during the pandemic. The service is appealing now to a more significant number of students and parents who need the meals.

BVT can effectively address requests for food assistance with the No Kid Hungry grant. The grant supports equipment and supply expenses related to transporting and distributing packages of meals directly to its students in the 13-town district and additional support services available through the School Based Health Center. For more information or to sign up your BVT student, please visit www.valleytech.k12.ma.us/mealdeliveryservice.