photo by: Joanna Hlavacek

Katy Townley, left, helps her 3-year-old daughter Livia pick out an apple Thursday, June 15, 2017, during lunchtime at the Lawrence Public Library's Fuel

Just about every Thursday morning, Katy Townley and her kids head down to the Lawrence Public Library for storytime, followed by some lunch.

“This is our hot spot on Thursdays — literally hot today,” joked Townley, taking refuge with 3-year-old Livia and 2-year-old Harrison under the shade of the building’s back-entrance overhang before venturing out onto the library lawn.

Stiflingly hot temperatures didn’t keep Townley — and some 250 other parents and kids — away from the library Thursday afternoon, where workers served up brown-bag lunches free of charge as part of Lawrence’s Fuel Up 4 Summer program.

The annual program, which kicked off earlier this month, will serve an estimated 45,000 meals this summer, said Michael Showalter, health promotion specialist at the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department. Several local agencies are involved with this year’s Fuel Up 4 Summer, itself a localized branding of the national Summer Food Service Program.

There are 10 meal sites around Lawrence this summer serving lunch or breakfast, sometimes both. A newly added site at the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority is serving dinner this summer, too. An increased amount of planning went into this year’s efforts, Showalter said, thanks to a grant from the National League of Cities and the Food Research and Action Center. And part of that planning, he said, is a continued effort to do away with the “stigma” that sometimes surrounds initiatives like Fuel Up 4 Summer.

“I think that’s kind of the concern, is that people will see this as a handout program or some kind of freebie, but really we want to stress that income doesn’t reflect someone’s ability to have access to healthy foods,” Showalter said. “It’s really just an option in the summer for anyone of any income level to have access to healthy food and a balanced meal.”

Much of the food served through the program, he added, is locally sourced. And it’s available, for free, to any kids ages 1 to 18. Adults can purchase meals, too, for $3.45.

“We’re trying to create that family atmosphere that makes it a little more accessible to people,” Showalter said.

At the Lawrence Public Library, which serves lunch outdoors Monday through Friday, there’s usually a long line of kids and grown-ups waiting for the noon lunch. On Thursday, Lawrence Public Schools food-service workers had formed two distribution lines to keep up with the steady stream of diners.

By 12:37 p.m., they’d served exactly 240 people. Many, like Townley and her kids, simply enjoy the convenience of grabbing lunch on the library lawn. Between the library and the Lawrence Outdoor Aquatic Center across the street, lots of families end up “making a day of it,” said Nikki Naumann, who spends most of the year working as the kitchen manager at Cordley Elementary School.

Naumann, one of a handful of workers at the Lawrence Public Library site, said she’s seen roughly a 50-meal-per-day increase at the site — Fuel Up’s largest — since last summer.

Growing up in a large family, Naumann said, sometimes there wasn’t enough to go around. So, she said, it’s rewarding to help diminish that burden for other families — even if it’s just a quick meal grabbed on the go between library activities.

“It feels good,” Naumann said. “People are happy, and they’re really thankful, for the most part.”

Stephanie Jenkins, who visited the library’s meal site Thursday with her two young kids, said she tries to stop by for lunch at least once a week over the summer months.

For her, the program offers convenience and a social outlet for herself and her kids. And the chocolate milk, of course — “it’s a treat for them to have chocolate milk, so that’s kind of the big hit with them,” Jenkins said of 3-year-old Cora and 5-year-old Henry.

“I’ve never lived in a city where this is so easily accessible,” said Jenkins, who grew up in Oklahoma and lived in Boston before moving to Lawrence a few years back. “It’s a real gift to have it.”

Fuel Up 4 Summer is sponsored locally by Boys and Girls Club of Lawrence; City of Lawrence Parks and Recreation Department; City of Lecompton; City of Perry; Harvesters; Just Food; K-State Research and Extension-Douglas County; Kansas Appleseed; Lawrence Public Library; Lawrence Public Schools food service department; Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department; Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority; Lecompton United Methodist Church; LiveWell Lawrence and Perry First State Bank and Trust.

For a complete list of meal sites and schedules, plus daily menus, visit fuelup4summer.com.