Hannah eats lunch every day in the community room at Royal Hills Apartments. She has for maybe three or four years. Otherwise she would probably heat a frozen dinner for lunch. But that wouldn’t include games with friends. The 9-year-old was playing Trouble after a recent lunch of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, apples, trail mix and milk.

“It’s fun and I can just hang out here,” Hannah says of lunch in the community room.

She and the apartment’s other children are welcome to play until 4 p.m. Hannah’s usually one of the last to leave.

“I usually stay around here ‘til they kick me out,” she says.

Elena is another regular. Both her parents work, so like Hannah, the 10-year-old would probably make her own lunch if she didn’t eat in the community room. Also like Hannah, Elena tends to stick around after lunch for games and art.

She likes lunchtime in the community room. Why?

“Because it’s fun and lunch is free,” she says.

Lunch in the community room is free not only for Elena, but for all children living at the apartments. About 85 eat there each day. And Royal Hills Apartments is just one of 16 sites where free lunches (and in some cases breakfast) is served to children under 18.

The meals are part of the Simplified Summer Food Program for Children, which is administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service at the national level and the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction at the state level.

Renton School District cooks prepare the meals, and the district manages six of the 16 sites. The non-school district sites were chosen in areas with high numbers of low-income children.

The City of Renton manages seven sites, and staff at the remaining three sites manages their own lunch distribution.

This year’s summer food program is much larger than last year, when lunch was offered at only three sites.

Kira Acker has led much of the program’s expansion. She started as nutrition services manager in August. She was hired after the retirement of the district’s director of nutrition services. Acker previously directed Tumwater School District’s nutrition program.

“The need is there,” Acker says of Renton’s summer food expansion. “When I started, the city was meeting with the district beforehand and really wanted to increase sites. We went for it.”

Statistics support that perceived need. As of May, 46 percent of the 13,130 students in Renton School District were enrolled in the federal free-and-reduced lunch program.

Acker says about 1,100 meals will be served each day this summer. That’s up from last year’s 200 a day.

Acker expects about 400 of those daily meals will be served just at Creston Point Apartments, a South Seattle building with about 500 apartments packed with young families.

More cooks have come on board to help produce this summer’s increased meals. Last year only one cook made the food, all in Renton High School’s kitchen. This summer eight cooks make the lunches and pack the coolers. These cooks are stationed at four school kitchens: Renton High, and Maplewood Heights, Campbell Hill and Renton Park elementaries.

The same cooks make lunches during the school year. Acker and Mann also manage meals during the school year.

Summer meals are served to children at five Renton parks, three apartment complexes, two community centers and six schools. All but two of the sites offer free lunch to any child under 18. Children must live at Renton Housing Authority and Royal Hills Apartments to receive lunch at those sites.

Each of the six schools are summer school sites. Breakfast and lunch is also served at the schools. Neither meals were served at last year’s summer school sites. But the need was still there. Acker witnessed that need last week when she saw students showing up hungry for summer school at Dimmitt Middle School.

“They need to eat before they start school,” Acker says.

She and Heather Mann helped get food into the summer school program. Mann was hired last September as field manager for Renton School District’s Nutrition Services. A registered dietician, Mann helps Acker create summer menus, as well as breakfast and lunch menus during the school year. Menus are approved by the state.

Menu items include much more than Hannah and Elena’s recent peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Main dishes include a turkey pita, hoagie sandwich, taco salad, tuna salad with pita bread, a chicken drummie leg and the popular crispy chicken salad in a shaker cup. Kids were asking for chicken salad leftovers, Acker says.

Acker sometimes eats the same lunch as the children she serves.

“If we wouldn’t eat it, we shouldn’t serve it,” she says.

Acker hopes this summer’s increased meal sites help alleviate some of Renton’s hunger, and the burden off places like the Salvation Army Renton Rotary Food Bank. But she and others know there are still many to feed.

And those many to feed aren’t just children. Acker and other supervisors have to make sure children eat their lunch on site. Otherwise the food may get into the wrong mouths. Acker has seen parents take lunches from their children.

“I wish I could just feed them all,” she says.

But the Simplified Summer Food Program for Children is intended only for children. And there are many to feed.

“There are still more pockets in the community,” says Liz Fast, a city recreation coordinator who supervises the summer lunch program.

Those pockets may get served during future summers.

“We’ll get through this year,” Fast says. “It’s a little bit of an experiment. If it works well we might expand more in the future. But right now we’ve gone as far as we can do a great job of.”

Summer

food sites

All are open to any children under 18, except if otherwise noted.

• June 23 to Aug. 29.Lunch at:

Ukrainian Community Center, 221 Hardie Ave. N.W., from 12-1 p.m.

RAYS Family Center, 12704 76th Ave. S., 11 a.m.-12 p.m.

Creston Point Apartments, 13445 Martin Luther King Jr. Way, Seattle, 12-1 p.m.

• Open only to children who are residents:

Renton Housing Authority, 970 Harrington Ave. N., 11 a.m.-noon

Royal Hills Apartments, 3000 S.E. Royal Hills Drive., 11 a.m.-noon.

• June 30 to Aug. 1. Breakfast from 8:30-9:30 a.m. and lunch from 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.

Maplewood Elementary Summer School, 13430 144th Ave. S.E.

Campbell Hill Elementary Summer School, 6418 124th St., Seattle

Renton Park Elementary Summer School, 16828 128th Ave. S.E.

Dimmitt Middle Summer School, 12320 80th Ave. S., Seattle

Renton Academy Summer School, 6928 116th Ave S.E., Newcastle

Hillcrest Early Childhood Education Center, 1800 Index Ave. N.E.

• June 23 to Aug. 15. Lunch from 11 a.m.-noon

Kennydale Park, 2428 Aberdeen Ave. N.E.

Kiwanis Park, 815 Union Ave. N.E.

Philip Arnold Park, 720 Jones Ave. S.

Teasdale Park, 601 S. 23rd St.

Tiffany Park, 1901 Lake Youngs Way S.E.