BULLHEAD CITY – The Colorado River Union High School District has expanded its grant-funded free meal programs for students attending class in person on campus. Packaged meals are now available for students at Mohave, River Valley and CRUHSD Academy High Schools to take home on weekends. This is in addition to meals during the school day that students receive on campus, as well as those available for anyone 18 and under delivered to neighborhood school bus stops.

As students leave the high schools each Thursday afternoon, beginning October 15, they may take pre-packaged breakfasts and lunches for Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. The meals will be distributed at the bus staging areas of the high schools. Students should not eat the meals, or any other food, while riding their school buses. Free breakfasts and lunches on campus will continue to be available for all students 18 and under in our area, regardless of where they attend school, through at least the end of the school year in June, thanks to a recent change in U.S. Department of Agriculture policy.

Neighborhood deliveries at bus stops were reinstated last month by the Bullhead City Elementary School District. Those are also available for anyone 18 and under, and are primarily targeted for those students who are continuing virtual online learning at home. Gone are restrictions requiring meal pickups at the school sites students attend, making it easier for families with children at more than one school. The full list of meal delivery bus stops is available on the school districts’ website, www.crsk12.org.

There will be a meal icon on the home page which links to the schedule. The students’ meal programs are coordinated by the Bullhead City Elementary and Colorado River Union High School Districts and Chartwells, the schools’ food service vendor. Meals are available to all children, not just those in the two districts. The USDA’s National School Lunch, School Breakfast and Summer Meal Programs, provide healthy meals which, for many students, are the only nutritious meals of the day.

The programs have received bipartisan support since first passed by Congress in 1946.