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MUSD nutrition distributes 770 food boxes
food box
Manteca Unified Nutrition Services staff at East Union High serve lunch after distributing all of the Farmers to Families Food Boxes on Wednesday.

The response was overwhelming on Wednesday.

The Manteca Unified School District’s Nutrition Education, in partner with a local vendor and the USDA, provided free pickups of Farmers to Families Food Boxes at East Union High, Lathrop High, Manteca High, Sierra High and Weston Ranch High, in conjunction with the regular drive-thru lunch services.

Each site received boxes consisting of either 20 pounds of chicken or 20 pounds of beef.

At East Union, all 150 boxes were gone within 45 minutes.

Ditto that for the other school sites – all told, 770 boxes of food were distributed.

Tracee Franks, who is the new coordinator of MUSD Nutrition Education, was thrilled with the strong turnout and surprised of how quickly the first come, first serve boxes went during this first go-around.

She’s planning of possibly tripling the order for the next distribution scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 30, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., or while supplies last.

“That just means our community needs (the food boxes),” Franks said.

The free food boxes were offered per car and without eligibility or income requirements. For MUSD Nutrition Education, this was part of the objective of promoting good health via nutrition, physical activity and education as way to support a complete learning experience.

In April, USDA exercised authority under the Families Coronavirus Response Act to purchase and distribute agricultural products to those in need, in turn, partnering with Farmers to Families to reach out and engage small farmers, processors and producers to acquire, box, and distribute food commodities.

For more information, log on to www.mantecausd.net or on Facebook at proudtobemusd