When the Los Angeles Unified School District announced in May it was canceling summer school for elementary and middle schools, many observers thought about children having nothing to do; few realized many of them would also be missing meals.
But two hundred youngsters at the Mar Vista Family Center in Culver City received free breakfast and lunch this summer as the result of a partnership between Loyola Marymount University and the Sodexo Foundation.
A total of 9,000 meals were served at Mar Vista, a preschool that serves low-income families and where 90 percent of the children qualify for the free lunch program during the school year. When summer school was canceled, Mar Vista administrators realized that a burden was placed on low-income families and they accepted additional children to help fill in the gap.
“Those children would have been exposed to life on the streets, gangs, drugs and crime without this opportunity,” said Lucia Diaz, chief executive of the Mar Vista Family Center. “They would also have gone hungry. Without the donations,” Diaz continued, “the center would have had to cut 70 children from the program this year.”
The effort was part of Feed Our Future, a national program begun by the Sodexo Foundation in 1997 to supplement federal assistance. It was launched in Chicago, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. and served 25,000 meals.
Sodexo partners with community organizations around the country to provide meals for children in need. In the Mar Vista partnership, the Sodexo Foundation provided $20,000 in food and LMU provided $2,000 to cover the cost of food preparation.
Ray Dennis, associate vice president of Auxiliary Management and Business Affairs at LMU, said that making a contribution to the community is an integral part of LMU’s mission. “We are using our resources to help others,” said Dennis. Diaz said this program gave her hope. “I am so appreciative to LMU and Sodexo especially this year, during such difficult times. It is a real blessing.”