A look at some of the fruits and vegetables that will be available for Centreville Public Schools students and families at the new Centreville Food Club.
By Robert Tomlinson
News Director
CENTREVILLE — According to Centreville Public Schools, in its over-900 student population, 53 percent of those students get free or reduced-price lunch every day.
With food insecurity also being a challenge among parts of its population, a new initiative in the district is looking to put food, toiletries and more into the hands of students for free.
On Wednesday, Dec. 10, Centreville Public Schools became the first K-12 district in the state of Michigan to open a Food Club, which is designed to do just that for district students and their families, free of charge.
“This is a project about taking care of kids, and this is the right community to be able to do something like that,” Superintendent Chad Brady said. “This is going to have an impact on students moreso than we’ll ever really truly understand.”
Set up in a former classroom in the junior high side of the Centreville Junior-Senior High School, the Food Club is set up like a mini grocery store, with a few double-sided store shelves, baskets of fruits and veggies, toiletries, and a freezer/fridge section, all filled with different food and grocery products.
Each family in the district, regardless of how many children they have, gets 25 points each week free of charge to shop at the store, with each item costing between a 1/2 point and three points. The more nutritious the food, the fewer points it costs: For example, veggies, rice, beans and soup are 1/2-point items; oatmeal, peanuts, bread, beef sticks and apple juice cost one point; maple syrup, chocolate snacks and cereal cost two points; and sugar, flour and Hostess cupcakes cost three points. Other items in the shop include milk, cheese, hot dogs, eggs, butter, chicken nuggets, bagels, and buns. Toiletry items, such as razors, shampoo, tampons and pads, cost between two and three points.
“It’s real easy for a family or a student to come in here and get enough food items to get them through a week, get them through a weekend,” Brady said. “We’re hopeful to empty out these shelves to the best of our ability between now and Christmas break so our students have food over the holiday.”
Students are allowed to shop the store two days a week – Tuesdays and Fridays – while families can place orders online as well for their students to pick up, and the store will be run by Agriculture Science students from St. Joseph County’s Career and Technical Education program. There are security protocols in place to avoid abuse and fraud as well.
The Food Club concept, Brady said, has been about a year in the making for the school district, and is part of an initiative through the Michigan Farm Bureau, who is the primary startup funding source for the district’s effort.
“They did a project, a research project with the University of Michigan to try to identify how they can get involved in some issues that may be facing rural communities. What they learned was food insecurity was at the top of that list,” Brady said. “When they started brainstorming some ideas, they thought, how can we get something like this into schools?”
When the initiative was first pitched to the Farm Bureau’s board, Michigan Farm Bureau Insurance board member Larry Walton, who is also on Centreville’s school board, thought the district would be a perfect fit for such a program, and pitched it to Brady.
“They rolled it out to us about a year ago in an insurance board meeting and said, we want to try doing a pilot food club in a school. I’m sitting there just thinking, why not?” Walton said. “You look at our student population and free and reduced lunch and any of that kind of stuff, and we can do something to have an impact on the community. And that was one of the reasons I reached out to Chad.”
“Larry gave me a call about a year ago, and I said, absolutely, let’s do this,” Brady added.
Throughout the process of getting it set up, Brady said there have been a number of partners willing to help get the initiative off the ground.
“We’ve been able to partner with South Michigan Food Bank, we’re working with Meijer’s Business to Business, we’ve worked with other different outfits in the ag world here locally in St. Joseph County, the St. Joseph County Farm Bureau, Walther Farms with some of the produce, it’s just been incredible,” Brady said. “I had someone that wishes to remain anonymous reach out to me a couple weeks ago, it was not even in this time zone, that is going to kick in funding for us to continue this operation as well.”
Brady said the Food Club is something completely new for the district, and something they’ll learn a lot about as the rest of the school year goes on.
“No one has done this before, so we’re kind of figuring this thing out as we go,” Brady said. “But, no matter what happens, no matter what hurdle we run into, it’s a good thing. It’s not something that we can’t clear, it’s about getting food in kids’ homes.”
Audrey Carey, the community engagement specialist for the Michigan Farm Bureau family of companies, said the Food Club is a “breath of fresh air” for the school district and for the Farm Bureau, especially with it launching right before the district’s holiday break.
“We’re so excited to really start learning from this experience and seeing how we can engage kids differently. This is just the start of this partnership between us and Centreville,” Carey said. “A lot of kids, sometimes the only meal that they get during the day is when they come to school. So being able to provide this resource before kids go home for that extended holiday break is so meaningful, knowing that they have food that they can access and fill their bellies with.”
In the future, Brady said there could be some more homegrown foods from the Agriculture Science program joining the shelves, saying it’s “on the roadmap” for future phases of the Food Club. Overall, though, Brady said while they may not know how big the initiative could become in the future, he believes the district has merely “scratched the surface” with what they can do.
“I don’t know if we’re entirely sure what this is all going to become. We think that this can continue to evolve, and it’s something that we haven’t even really scratched the surface for,” Brady said. “I anticipate needing more refrigerators, needing more freezer space. I anticipate expanding of partnerships and more ag-community partnerships. So, what this can become remains to be seen. But what we know is that we have something here that’s going to allow kids to make sure that they have food at home.”
Robert Tomlinson can be reached at 279-7488 or robert@wilcoxnewspapers.com.
