Maryland Food Bank distributes over 80,000 meals in summer program

The Maryland Food Bank is delivering thousands of meals this summer to make sure children who are need do not go hungry.

The meals will make a trek of more 100 miles from Baltimore and will be unloaded at 20 sites on the eastern shore.

"Our summer feeding program is a way to segue from school time into the summer, which children don't have access to that free lunch on a regular basis," said the Maryland Food Bank Director, Jennifer Small.

Sites include the Salvation Army North Lake Park Youth Center, Garland Hayward Youth Center and Laurel Grove Apartments.

According to Small, there are about 42,000 people on the Eastern Shore who are food insecure, and there are 14,000 children who are in need of food. 

The Salvation Youth Center says children who attend get 60 to 70 meals per day during the school year, but during the summer those numbers double. 

"For our youth center, if you talk dollars and cents, you're talking about four to five dollars a meal to feed a child, and we just wouldn't be able afford it," said the Salvation Youth Center Director, Willie Downing. 

"We'll watch kids eat and ugh, me personally, I don't like uncooked broccoli and ranch, but you see those kids and they'll be eating those ranch dressings with the uncooked broccoli," said Downing.