Riverside Unified School District (RUSD) Nutrition Services
Director, Rodney Taylor, knows the face of hunger in his
community. On a daily basis, Rodney’s team serve lunch to about
34,000 RUSD kids, 61 percent of whom qualify for free or reduced
price meals. While the RUSD staff offer these students a fresh,
healthy, nutritious meal during the school year, where do
students eat during the summer? In previous years, many students
ate lunch at summer school. However, steep budget cuts in 2008
and 2009 forced many school districts, including RUSD, to
drastically reduce their summer school sites to only three
schools, leaving about 25,000 kids without a place to eat.
Without the summer school program, where would those kids eat?
That is where the RUSD's summer barbeques come in.