Goshen Health offers free backpack meals and summer health education programs for local families

This summer, Goshen Health will continue to offer free weekend backpack meals in conjunction with their Summer Health Lunch Bunch education program to support families and improve community health.

The Summer Health Lunch Bunch program brings health education directly to children and families at targeted summer feeding sites in Goshen, Elkhart and Warsaw. Since its launch in 2018, more than 12,000 students have participated in the program, which combines free meals with hands-on learning to promote healthier lifestyles in Elkhart County and beyond.

Goshen Health will distribute approximately 150 backpack meals every Friday, June 1 through June 26. The backpacks are provided through a partnership with Cultivate Food Rescue and contain six frozen, nutritionally balanced meals - enough to help families fill the weekend meal gap and ease food insecurity for area youth. The meals will be available on a first come, first served basis at Shanklin, Pringle and Hay parks.

“Cultivate is excited to partner with Goshen Health and Goshen Community Schools again this summer to get food into the hands of local families,” said Laura McNaff, Cultivate Food Rescue Director of Outreach. “We are thankful to work with partners that help us provide food resources to the students in our community."

Summer Health Lunch Bunch is hosted in collaboration with Goshen, Elkhart and Warsaw school systems, along with community partners including the Center for Healing & Hope, Cultivate Food Rescue, Elkhart County Health Department, Goshen Farmers Market, Live Well Kosciusko and Purdue Extension of Elkhart County and Kosciusko County.

Families can find site locations and program details at https://GoshenHealth.com/Programs/Summer-Health-Lunch-Bunch. For additional information, contact Goshen Health at (574) 364-2496.