MIDDLETOWN, Ohio – Middletown City Schools recently used a grant to spend $225,000 on a food truck.

• School districts are expanding food programs outside of the school day
• 40 to 50 percent of Ohio school kids are eligible for free and reduced lunches
• Additional food support outside of the traditional cafeteria setting is generally reimbursed by the federal government

The Middies Meal Truck is expected to be put into service by the end of May once it passes health and safety inspections.

Middletown Schools Superintendent Marlon Styles, Jr. said in a recent interview with Spectrum News 1 that it's a unique way to get health meals and snacks to student outside of the school day.

“The idea here is to teach our students lifelong, healthy eating habits,” Styles said. “So the food that will be prepared in this Middie Meal Machine, we want to accompany that with some educational, nutritional material to educate our students on those lifelong eating habits.”

The idea is to send the truck to school and community events where students may be. On average, the truck can distribute 250 to 300 meals per stop.

“We see this as an academic space during the school day that teachers can leverage to provide students access to really unique and innovate learning experiences connected to standards. But also outside of the school day it's an opportunity for us to get into our community, community events, school events, or just into the neighborhoods and provide our students access to quality, healthy meals.”

Middletown schools is home to approximately 6,000 students and most are eligible for free and reduced lunches. Styles hopes community and school supporters will help keep the food truck operational.

Right now, the district is still working to finalize insurance plans. And they're still gathering data on what it will take to operate the truck at each event.

“Fiscally, whatever we can afford to do and we can really commit to doing on an annual basis, we want to maximize our finances. We've had a couple folks out in the community and across the city, once they've seen the revealing of the Middie Meal Machine, already share with us they'd like to contribute and donate to the cause.”

Middletown hopes to operate the truck year-round.

At nearby Lakota Local School District, they use two retrofitted buses to reach students during the summer.

Working with Butler County-based Faith Alliance, the district identifies roughly a half-dozen stops to make within the district's boundaries to reach students who might be food insecure. Lakota is home to more than 16,000 students and approximately 20 percent are eligible for free and reduced lunches.

Any student is able to grab a meal or snack from the bus, however.

In Ohio, between 40 and 50 percent of the state's nearly 2-million schoolchildren are eligible for free and reduced lunches. Both Middletown and Lakota operate their food outreach programs within state and federal guidelines and both receive food reimbursement from the federal government.