Osseo Area Schools Launch Summer Food Truck
Osseo Area Schools’ summer meals program has a new addition this summer: a food truck. The truck’s meals are free for anyone age 18 and younger.
When hunger strikes in the great outdoors, there are few better solutions than a food truck. Sarah Goldsmith, who is typically the assistant kitchen manager at North View Middle School in Brooklyn Park, helped serve up meals at Northwoods Park on Wednesday morning.
Goldsmith took orders at the window, just like a typical food truck.
“It’s different. I like it,” Goldsmith said. “This is just a fun way to be able to bring them a hot meal while they’re in the park — so it’s been cool!”
Osseo’s summer meal program comes in many forms: hot meals in open school buildings or cold meals packed and ready in area parks. Now, there’s a happy medium: a hot meal, served from a food truck in the park.
These federally-funded summer meal programs make a big difference. Jeff Ansorge, director of food and nutrition services for Osseo Area Schools, said it’s addressing a hunger gap that’s left when school isn’t in session and meals aren’t guaranteed.
“During the school year, our free and reduced percentage is probably in the high 50s,” Ansorge said. “When I look at summer, where are those kids getting their meals in the summer? They don’t have the stability of school Monday through Friday during the school year.”
An assembly line of Osseo Nutrition Services staff put together lunches for kids at Northwoods Park. The meals are cooked off-site, but kept warm and assembled for kids when they’re ordered.
A Healthy Option
At the food truck, its menu of hot meals are available to kids in the park free of charge. Kids attending a Brooklyn Park camp used it on Wednesday, but so did other kids playing in the park independently. A Second Harvest Heartland grant helped pay for the meals.
Ansorge said the food truck’s been many years in the making. It was just finished a few weeks ago, and sent out to parks in somewhat of a trial run for the last two weeks.
He said it was exciting to get the truck, wrap it in the Osseo branding, and now finally see it out in the community.
“Being at parks and seeing the kids, that’s awesome. It’s very cool,” Ansorge said. “Food trucks are fun, right? It brings excitement to the park, to the kids. And I think that’s one of the things we wanted to accomplish with the food trucks.”
The truck was half paid for by Second Harvest Heartland, with the other half paid by the district’s nutrition fund. Ansorge said that those dollars are made from food sales within the district.
While the truck won’t be out for the rest of the summer, Osseo’s summer meals will continue until August 14. Times and locations throughout the district can be found on the district’s website. The Hunger Impact Partners’ app also has a list of places youth can find free meals statewide.
The truck will also be used for other events during the school year.
Families line up outside the new food truck to pick up their free meals.
