Our Daily Bread: Free summer meals program returns in July

First United Methodist Church will have their free hot lunch and sandwich supper program, Our Daily Bread, return in July. Unlike last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the meal program will be held inside and will not be offering a curbside pickup or delivery option.

The program is welcome to all in the community and will be held at 11:30 a.m. in the FUMC McCree Hall from Tuesday, July 6, through Friday, Aug. 13. The event was started 10 years ago when FUMC member Bronwen Choate was in her final teaching year at Graham ISD.

She wanted a program where the children could be fed in the summer after school was out and following the school district’s summer feeding program through the United State Department of Agriculture. Choate got the funding for the program after speaking with her church and since then the program has blossomed in the city.

“It is important to us because we are trying to serve an underserved part of the community,” Choate said. “Sometimes it’s people that are under the radar. It is not that they aren’t getting food stamps, but sometimes it’s a quality of food and they don’t prepare (because) they don’t have an oven. Maybe they don’t even have a microwave. So they are eating all their food cold and we have nutritious meals. A lot of the vegetables come from our garden and so we are providing a hot meal that is very nutritious and in good quantity and then they get that take-home sack supper so essentially they have two meals a day.”

For the rest of the story, see the June 26 edition of The Graham Leader.