Local charities, like the Brazos Valley Food Bank, are picking up the slack after school-district-sponsored summer meal programs ended on Friday, August 4th.
College Station ISD had the only summer meal program in the Bryan/College Station area, serving students from both cities. In all, they served over 14,500 meals of breakfast or lunch.
That program stopped serving meals last week, prompting questions about where students can get free meals in the three-week-period leading up to school.
CSISD and BISD told KAGS they refer students to the Brazos Valley Food Bank for meals.
But, there's no exact program in place at the food bank to meet this specific demand.
"Our goal had been to fill these last two weeks with a program. We really were not able to find a partner in Bryan or College Station to do that," said Theresa Mangapora, Executive Director of the Brazos Valley Food Bank.
While there's no specific program in place, Mangapora says students and families can still come to the food bank if they need assistance.
"There are always going to be food pantries open all year round to get food for those kiddos, during that time," she said.
Other organizations in the BCS area are also stepping up, like the Christ United Methodist Church. Every Tuesday through Thursday this summer, they've been taking roughly 85 bagged lunches to the Southgate area in College Station. The church says they'll keep doing that, during this upcoming three week period.
Mangapora says she and the food bank are looking at options on how to better fill this meal-gap next summer.