Free summer meal programs offered for Jamestown area youth

Parents looking for a no-cost way to cover breakfast and lunch this summer have two Jamestown options, both built to help families stretch budgets while school is out. One is a weekly pickup at the NDSU Extension - Stutsman County office; the other is a school-and-park meal route that brings food closer to neighborhoods.

Where the meals are available

The main pickup site is the Stutsman County Extension Office at 502 10th Ave. SE in Jamestown. NDSU Extension - Stutsman County will hand out meal boxes every Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. from May 27 through Aug. 19. Families can pick up meals for their children, which makes the site especially useful for parents who need a predictable weekday pickup they can work into a lunch break or errands around town.

A second free meal option runs at Roosevelt, Washington, Lincoln and Louis L’Amour elementary schools, along with Leapaldt Park, from May 27 through Aug. 7. That schedule runs Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 12:45 p.m., giving Jamestown families a more neighborhood-based choice if the school or park sites fit their routine better. Both options are free.

What each child receives

The Extension office pickup provides each participating youth with a seven-day box that includes seven breakfasts and seven lunches. The boxes are described as nutritious, shelf-stable meal kits, which matters for working families that need food that can be stored, planned around and used across the week rather than eaten immediately.

The Jamestown Public Schools option at the schools and Leapaldt Park is a little different. It includes fresh fruit, vegetables and milk, and the meal count changes by day: children receive two breakfasts and two lunches on Mondays and Wednesdays, then three breakfasts and three lunches on Fridays. That structure helps cover several days at a time and gives families a mix of perishable and ready-to-use food.

How to participate

Families need a one-time consent form from a parent or guardian, and children can take part in only one of the two programs. Youth ages 18 and younger are eligible, but 18-year-olds must still be enrolled in school to participate. That detail is important for older students who may still rely on summer meals even after classes end for the year.

The Jamestown setup also fits the broader USDA summer meals model, which allows approved sites to serve kids 18 and younger at no cost. Those federal meal sites can be eat-on-site or meals-to-go, and meals-to-go are available in some rural areas. In practical terms, that makes the Jamestown options part of a larger national network designed to keep children fed when school cafeterias are closed.

Nutrition education is part of the package

The Extension office is doing more than meal distribution. Free summer nutrition programs will be held there from 1 to 2 p.m. on Wednesdays beginning June 3, adding a hands-on food education piece to the meal pickup site. The first session is called Shake It Your Way! and features a Blenderless Smoothie recipe.

That small addition changes the feel of the program. It turns a food pickup into a weekly family stop that can offer ideas for simple, low-cost nutrition as well as the food itself. For parents trying to keep summer routines steady, that combination of shelf-stable meals and practical cooking ideas can be just as valuable as the box in hand.

Why the need is so persistent

Great Plains Food Bank says childhood hunger is a year-round issue, but summer is especially hard because children lose access to school breakfast and lunch. The youth summer meals effort was created to fill that gap, and the numbers show why it matters. In 2023, the program provided 23,270 meals across 14 North Dakota locations, up from 5,402 the year before, and Jamestown was among the communities served.

The food bank also says children make up 36 percent of the people it serves in a year, totaling more than 50,000 kids. That scale helps explain why free summer meals are not just a helpful add-on in Stutsman County, but a real budget stabilizer for households trying to manage rising grocery costs while school is out. In that context, the Jamestown pickup at 502 10th Ave. SE and the school-and-park sites give local families a practical backstop all summer long.

For more information on the Youth Summer Meals Program, Great Plains Food Bank lists Alicia Triemert, the Childhood Hunger Program Manager, as the contact.