Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools is hoping that thousands more families sign up this week for meals delivered by school buses or picked up from schools.
The “CMS Eats At Home” program provides free or affordable meals for students who are learning remotely, while also keeping bus drivers and cafeteria staff employed.
Families can sign up to have five days of breakfasts and lunches delivered each week to their children’s bus stops. It’s free for students who qualify for free or discounted school lunches, and $15 a week for others.
The deadline for getting meals delivered the first week of September is midnight Tuesday. But there’s more time to sign up for pickup meal bundles.
Child nutrition services director Cathy Beam says 11,000 students were signed up for the bus-delivered meal bundles by the first day of school. “I’d like to see that number double,” she said Monday.
Beam said about 6,900 students picked up meals Monday, the first day of remote learning. CMS is using the “grab and go” system for the first two weeks, until it gets the meal bundle program ready.
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