Giving Compass' Take:

• Food Truck programs throughout Ohio help curb student hunger by traveling to low-income communities in the summer and offering free and reduced-price lunches. 

• How can donors support community development partnerships like this one that can help local schools? 

• Read about the food truck initiatives in Minneapolis. 

Middletown City Schools in Ohio marks the latest school system in the state to work to end hunger among its students.

The district recently launched a $225,000 program for food trucks to travel to students on non-school days — it will also travel to low-income communities in the city this summer — to feed those who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch, according to the Journal-News.

Middletown and New Miami Local Schools mark two districts in Butler County where 100% of students were eligible for free school meals in 2018. Middletown follows two neighboring districts, Lakota Local Schools — which served an average of 273 meals per day last year — and Hamilton schools in implementing mobile food units to feed students, the Journal-News reports.

In nearby Warren County, another district's food program works to support its high-needs students. In Kings Local Schools' "power pack" program, volunteers put a weekend's worth of food into bags and discreetly deliver them to students’ lockers or outside classrooms on Friday afternoons so students have food to eat while they're out of school.

Student hunger is a major problem in areas across the country, and having insufficient access to meals can hurt students in their physical, mental and academic development. And thousands of children are affected — the No Kid Hungry organization estimates that 1 in 6 children in the United States face hunger on a regular basis.

As demonstrated with the Ohio districts' efforts, many schools and community organizations are taking action to minimize the effects of this problem not only during the school day, but also on breaks and periods during which children aren't coming to school.

Read the full article about food trucks for student meals by Shawna De La Rosa at Education Dive.