THE FOLLOWING IS A DANVILLE DISTRICT 118 RELEASE
Danville, IL, June 16, 2026 – During the week of June 15, Danville’s School District 118 launched a new “Meals to Go” option for its annual Summer Feeding Program for all County students.
Based on overwhelming number of local residents who registered their children for the program and have flocked to distribution sites. According to D118 Food Service Director Zetta Piggott, “Meals-to-go is off to a great start in addressing an acute community need.”
In prior years, the program’s funding source didn’t allow students a take-out option. As D 118 nutritionist Chris Fitzsimmons says, “School personnel were required to serve the food to children at designated locations.”
However, the new program not only continues to feed students on site, but thanks to a $30,000 USDA rural grant, Danville 118 is now able to distribute food on a drive-up, take-away basis.
While the Summer Feeding Program continues to include on-site breakfast and lunch at Danville High as well as Meade Park and Southwest Elementary schools, the new meals-to-go program features two distribution sites.
Every Monday through July 27, the pick-up locations for the boxes of food are at the Fair Oaks housing complex and Vermilion Garden apartments.
Every Tuesday, beginning on June 16 and through July 28, D118 staff and volunteers from local civic groups distribute boxes of food in the loading-dock area behind North Ridge Middle School. The staging area is the parking lot of the school’s next-door neighbor, American Legion Post 210 on Danville’s Jackson Street.
Each “take-out” box is filled with seven days of food for a student as well as a menu and cooking instructions.
As Ms. Piggott says, “Too many of our students don’t have access to healthy food during the summer when they’re out of school, so this program helps ensure that our young people are able to keep eating healthy.”
Ms. Fitzsimmons adds, “It’s a proven fact that good nutrition leads to good academics.”
While all students in the County between the ages of 1 and 18 are eligible for the Summer Feeding Program, prior registration is required. “Parents or legal guardians can register their students anytime,” says Ms. Fitzsimmons, “but it needs to be in person.”
Information on where registration takes place is available through the Danville 118 Web site’s contact information at https://www.danville118.org.
During the first day at North Ridge, June 16, hundreds of cars were lined up along Jackson Avenue and filled the VFW lot. Says Frank McCullough, a volunteer from the Three Kings of Peace, “We saw a steady stream of cars all day long. What the school district is doing for our community and our young people is truly a godsend.”
