Uncertainty for school district meal deliveries
Courtesy Image The local school districts may not be able to provide meals to their displaced students due to delayed deliveries from their supplier.
Plans by the local school districts to provide meals for their students during their closures has hit a potential snag.
Both the Kellogg and Mullan school districts had announced earlier this week that they were planning on making sure their students had food accessible to them by setting up pick-up and delivery options.
But on Thursday morning Mullan announced via social media that they would not be able to fulfill their end of the bargain due to their food distributor canceling delivery to all schools until further notice.
The supplier, URM Stores Inc., supplies all of the local schools with the food that they use for the breakfasts and lunches that they provide.
Mullan Jr./Sr. High School Principal Don Kotschevar spoke to representatives from URM and confirmed the situation.
“We are still sorting it out at this time,” Kotschevar said. “All I know is our food services director received a phone call from our salesperson at URM stating all school lunch orders had been canceled and deliveries would not be made. They are using all trucks for grocery store deliveries at this time trying to get caught up.”
According to MSD’s Facebook post, following the meal deliveries on Friday, March 20, they are going to suspend their delivery service.
The Kellogg School District was still figuring out their plans for providing meals to students, and still plans to do so with the food that they do have, but the unknowns regarding when deliveries will be coming in has Kellogg School District Superintendent Dr. Nancy Larsen, a little nervous due to the unknown number of kids that will be seeking food.
“Our plan is to meet kids at our regular bus stops and deliver food to the kids at those locations,” Larsen said. “But we don’t know how many kids we will be feeding. We may have 50 kids show up, or we might have 350.”
Wallace School District Superintendent Dr. Bob Ranells announced that should the district move forward with their plan for virtual schooling, they would also be providing meals for students.
However, he estimated that currently they have enough food to last roughly 15 days.
URM Stores Inc. was reached out to for comment, but did not respond.
At this point, the districts will try to provide meals as they are able to, but to stay informed of each district’s plans, please stay in contact with each of them, or follow their many social media pages.
For the Kellogg School District call 208-784-1348, for the Mullan School District call 208-744-1126 and for the Wallace School District call 208-753-4515.