By Cheril Lee
Omaha, NE – Omaha Public Schools will offer free breakfast and lunch this summer for kids ages 1 to 18.
Tammy Yarmon is the Director of Nutrition Services for OPS. She says the USDA offers a food service program during the summer to bridge the gap between school years. OPS began offering breakfast during the summer in 1991. Yarmon says the free breakfast programs are located throughout Omaha and open various days and times so children may have a free meal, "Especially in times like this where the economy isn't the best. This helps those families out so that way they can take their monies and they can put them someplace else. You know, use them for paying the rent or paying the electricity bill, making a house payment or buying gas, just to get to work "
Though the program is for kids, Yarmon says money has been made available to the food banks, so if a parent brings their child in for a free meal, the parent may eat as well. A complete listing of sites for OPS' summer breakfast and lunch program is available online at www.ops.org.