By Brian Ojanpa
MANKATO — Fourteen-year-old John Knaack was dishing like a restaurant critic:
“The Spanish rice is better this year, very flavorful now that they’re using hamburger instead of bacon.”
He and other children residing in Lime Valley Mobile Home Park were partaking in the Mankato Salvation Army’s Mobile Outreach Meals, a summer program that has distributed free daily lunches to kids for more than a decade.
The program added three serving sites this year, bringing to seven the number of lunch venues for children up to age 18.
At Lime Valley, Salvation Army workers Amy and Jennifer Mealy pulled up in a delivery van and set up shop.
Amy Mealy said the kids know the drill:
“No pushing, hitting or talking naughty, or you go to the end of the line,” she said.
With ground rules made clear, kids police themselves. When a boy at the front of the line uttered an off-color word, his peers sent him packing.
Another boy was dressed down for his undress.
“You’re not wearing shoes, and you’re all dirty. Get out of here,” he was told, none too seriously, by another child.
Wednesday’s menu featured green beans, fruit cup, milk and the aforementioned entree.
“Spanish rice is awesome,” 10-year-old Robert Nisbet said as he dug in.
The green beans, however, were greeted with some groans as Knaack attempted to set the naysayers straight.
“They can only give us stuff that’s nutritious, or else they get fired,” he said.
Last year the program served more than 100 children a day, and Salvation Army officials expect that figure to double with the addition of the new meal sites.
The program aims to fill a void created when free and reduced-price school lunch programs are curtailed in summer for income-eligible families.
The program is under the auspices of the statewide Summer Food Service Program administered by the Minnesota Department of Education.
