Janelle Peterson, Food Service Supervisor with Rapid City Area Schools, says, "You know, during the school year kids have an opportunity to eat school breakfast and school lunch so what we're doing this year is making sure kids have an opportunity to come in and get a good nutritious meal."

Similar breakfast and lunch programs are being served up at Youth and Family Services along with the Rapid City Club for Boys. Scott Bader with the Club for Boys says, "The meals they get here are really the best meals they get all day long. And it isn't because families don't care about the kids or anything like that, they're just busy."

So a few extra hands have come to fill the void. Darcie Decker, Nutrition Director at YFS, says, "I have two of them that quite often come in at five in the morning, otherwise six in the morning. They're here baking, packing sack lunches, getting breakfast and lunch ready for the kids."

No easy feat. You see with about 350 served per day at the Club for Boys, 500 to 600 at Rapid City schools and another 450 at YFS you're looking at more than a thousand hungry mouths to feed. And although the Club for Boys only serves to members, YFS and Rapid City Schools offer free breakfast and lunch to anyone 18 or younger.

The meals come free-of-charge thanks to a U-S Department of Agriculture program. Breakfast starts between 9 and 9:15 at Robbinsdale, Horace Mann, Knollwood and General Beadle elementary schools and at the YFS facility on Monroe Street. Lunch is served around 11.

Zach Nugent