POULSBO — The North Kitsap School District needed some help providing lunches for many of its students enrolled in summer school this year.
Luckily, someone took the bait in helping out — a little “fish” on Little Norway’s 3rd Avenue.
Fishline Food Bank answered the district’s call for the “Readiness to Learn” program, a science and reading-based summer school held at Poulsbo Junior High School. Each day, the non-profit will deliver sack lunches to the approximately 60 first through sixth graders enrolled in the program.
“They are so wonderful to do this,” said NKSD Assistant Director of Learning Support Services Dixie Husser. “It’s remarkable the work they do for us.”
During the school year, free and reduced lunches are provided to students in North Kitsap whose families qualify. But in the summer, the district doesn’t receive federal help because less than 50 percent of its students are below the poverty line — the margin they must have to get free lunches.
With Fishline’s help, the district can focus on providing an education for students, Husser said.
“It allows us to use our dollars for instruction and not for snacks,” she commented. “It’s beneficial to students and therefore beneficial to the district.”
Tricia Sullivan, executive director of Fishline, said that although donations are always welcome, the food bank is well prepared in providing the summer school’s lunches.
“We saw this as a need that we could fill,” Sullivan said. “We’ve got our volunteers rounded up and our food rounded up.”
The Readiness to Learn Program is funded jointly by the district, the Suquamish Tribe and the Readiness to Learn organization of Kitsap County. Each organization pools funds for the summer school so students can attend free of charge.
One of the main reasons Sullivan said that it’s critical that Fishline work with the school district is because approximately 50 percent of the food bank’s clients are children, ages 18 and younger.
With Fishline’s effort, the educational opportunity for students has been maximized — including every-other-day trips to the Marine Science Center and a 12:1 student-to-teacher ratio.
“(Fishline’s help) ensures the learning experience for the kids and ensures that we can provide five teachers for 60 students — and it is allowing us to take the kids to MSC every other day,” Husser said. “Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to do that.”
