Meal deliveries in Spain for Costa Almeria’s most vulnerable kids

FREE meals are being distributed to nearly 1,000 vulnerable schoolchildren in 58 Almeria municipalities to ensure they don’t go without a proper diet during the coronavirus state of alarm.
The provision of meal packs for 987 children included in the Child Diet Reinforcement Programme follows an agreement adopted by the Junta de Andalucia on “alleviating the effects of the health crisis” on youngsters now the schools have all been shut.
Each child receives a breakfast, an afternoon snack pack and a lunch.
Participating companies are dropping off the packs twice a week, on Mondays and Fridays, at council facilities equipped for the food to be kept safely. The collection of the food is then by established turns to prevent contact between families and to guarantee the safety of employees in accordance with the measures set out in the state of alarm declaration.
Where possible, the companies are taking the food directly to the children’s homes to avoid people having to go out.
Junta Almeria delegate for Education, Sport, Equality, Social Policy and Conciliation, Antonio Jimenez, explained the Andalucia government is financing this extraordinary service, and revealed three companies and the FAAM Almeria Federation of Associations for Disabled People have taken on responsibility for giving out the food and for communicating with the families involved.
Huercal-Overa is one of the Costa Almeria municipalities collaborating on the food distribution initiative. The local council reported that after establishing the pertinent protocol with the Junta’s Education department is has been agreed that the council will do the meal deliveries to the 20 families in the municipality receiving the assistance.
Mayor Francisca Lourdes Fernandez explained that that after studying the situation “we have opted to take the backs to the beneficiaries so as to avoid the movement of the families and so they can comply with the confinement and minimise the risks of contagion.”