There were many questions school systems around the state had to grapple with last week when schools began to close because of the coronavirus. One of the main questions was: How are we going to continue to provide meals to our students, who depend on us?

Franklin County Schools is providing meals to children up to the age of 18 during the school closure caused by the coronavirus. Meals for the entire week are prepackaged by lunchroom workers and volunteers in each community. They can be picked up at each school in the county on Mondays from 10 a.m. to noon.

Meals are also being distributed to homes of bus riders by bus drivers during the same time.

If a student meets a bus at a certain location, they must be at that location to pick up the meals. Students themselves must be at the location of the pickup.

Students must also be in the car while they are picking up meals at the school. Meals can not be given to adults.

“Like a lot of other systems, this hit us quick, and we had to come up with a plan,” said Franklin County Superintendent Greg Hamilton. “We decided to run the car line where no one gets out of a vehicle.

“We have large numbers of our students who ride the bus, so we came up with a plan to use the buses to hand out meals.”

The plan first went into implantation March 18, when more than 15,906 meals prepared – breakfast and lunch for three days.

The plan went into full implementation Monday, providing breakfast and lunch for five days.

The USDA has granted a waiver to schools to run this program through June 30 if necessary.

“I want to thank each and every employee and volunteer that has helped make this meal plan available to our students,” said Hamilton. “The compassion of these employees is one of the characteristics that makes the Franklin County Schools system great.

“We are experiencing unprecedented times, and we need to help our students any way we can.”