By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
The Child Care Task Force of Ellis County is exploring options to create a food service system for child care homes and centers in Ellis County.
A subcommittee met Thursday night that brought together food service and child care providers.
Ellis County has eight child care centers and 75 registered in-home child care providers who, in total, care for about 2,200 children with more children on waiting lists.
The Sunshine Connections food program is a locally-based and federally-funded food program that provides reimbursement for food costs for in-home child care providers.
The providers have to prepare the food themselves for the children.
Tory Ruder, an in-home provider, said the program has nutritional requirements as well as restricts certain processed foods from being served.
Because of regulations and paperwork, some providers do not participate in the program, although Ruder said she does use the program.
A central food provider or providers could decrease food costs through bulk purchasing, save providers time in shopping and preparing food, save space for storing food, reduce paperwork for providers and ensure children are served balanced meals.
The group discussed the possibility of offering breakfast, lunch and snack daily. Food would likely be delivered once a day, but it was unclear if that would be in the morning and would need to be reheated or at lunchtime.
Brett Schmidt, Learning Cross Child Care owner, said Learning Cross currently only provides lunch with parents providing snacks. He said he would be interested in offering breakfast if this service was offered.
Food service providers said set menus and headcounts are important in food service contracts.
Ruder asked if there would be the possibility of opting out of a meal or day.
Philip Kuhn, owner of The Press, said food has to be ordered in advance and inconsistent food orders make it harder for a food service provider to order food, maintain staff and pay for other fixed expenses, such as utilities.
Kuhn, who already has food service contracts, said he has provisions in his menus for special diets, such as lactose intolerance and common allergies.
Schmidt said most child care providers would need food delivery because of staffing issues.
Sarah Wasinger, Hays Chamber director and group facilitator, said she hoped to draw on a volunteer base to deliver food.
Wasinger said she also hopes to write grant requests to help pay for the start-up costs of the food service program, especially for those costs associated with delivery.
The food service providers said all of the food would have to be delivered in hot boxes. Health regulations also require temperatures to be checked before food is sent and once it arrives at a facility.
Jessica Younker, Hays USD 489 food service director, serves family-style food to Westside school and Early Childhood Connections and just those two facilities require many serving containers that have to be washed and delivered back to the kitchen each day.
Wasinger said the new food system may involve multiple food service providers. She said those providers would likely be selected through a bidding process.
Costs to providers to participate in the program have not been set yet.
However, Kuhn said as a provider he would have to take into several factors when deciding that cost and if he as a business owner would participate. Some of these include the complexity of the program. Would he be asked to just cook food or deliver food or handle logistics or even paperwork associated with state or federal food programs?
Wasinger said the next step will be to send a survey to in-home providers to see how much they are paying for food and what their interest may be in a food program.