For some Montgomery County children, free summer meals are too far away

The end of the school year adds a new burden for families who rely on campuses to provide free breakfast and lunch to their children.

While Montgomery County Public Schools operates an expansive summer meals program, that food can be hard to access for kids who live in Poolesville, Barnesville and other communities in the rural Upcounty.

The closest summer food site to Poolesville Elementary, for example, is more than 10 miles away — at least a 20-minute drive.

“People just don’t appreciate how different this area is than the rest of the county,” community leader Link Hoewing said.

MCPS serves free meals at more than 100 campuses through the federal Summer Food Service Program, which requires sites to be located in a school attendance area where at least half of children are eligible to receive free or reduced-price meals.

The four schools in the Poolesville cluster — two elementaries, a middle school and a high school — don’t hit that benchmark. Monocacy Elementary comes the closest; about a quarter of its families are considered economically disadvantaged.

Children who attend those schools can still get free meals, but only if they find a way to get to a site for chicken sandwiches, fresh fruit, broccoli and other nutritious foods.

District spokeswoman Liliana López emphasized that the program is governed by strict regulations.

“While MCPS strives to serve as many students as possible, we cannot bypass these federal eligibility requirements in areas that do not meet the minimum eligibility,” she wrote in an email.

A U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesperson said the agency “works closely with states” to ensure that children in need can access meals during the summer. In a statement, they suggested that families check the Summer Meals Site Finder.

District officials encourage MCPS families in need of assistance during the summer to apply for the state’s SUN Bucks program, which provides parents and guardians with $40 per month for each eligible child.

The four schools in the Poolesville cluster together serve more than 350 low-income families, according to fall 2025 data.

“Summer is the most precarious time for food-insecure children, so just not being able to access those meals really can be scary for these families,” said Katie Longbrake, who runs a nonprofit that helps families in Western Upper Montgomery County.

Just because there are fewer of those children in a sparsely populated region, she said, doesn’t mean their needs are less critical than those who live elsewhere.

Longbrake’s organization, WUMCO Help, works to fill the gaps. They collect donations from community groups and faith leaders, then distribute food packages to dozens of families in the area.

In 2024, WUMCO solicited food donations via a frank Facebook post.

“Without breakfast and lunch at school many kids and families struggle to get meals on the table,” the organization posted. “The closest MCPS summer feeding site is in Clarksburg, which for many WUMCO clients is an unreasonable distance to go in the middle of a workday.”

Last summer, WUMCO served around 40 families per week, but Longbrake expects the need to climb this year. Grocery prices are on the rise, as is the price of gas.

“There’s no grocery store within walking distance for most of our families,” she said. “So all of those stresses compound to make getting food on the table more challenging.”

Hoewing said the summer meal conundrum reflects a bigger issue: The area’s isolation and small population mean that people’s needs can remain hidden from county officials.

About 13,000 people live in Western Montgomery County, compared to the more than a million in the rest of the county. The region accounts for roughly 1% of the population but nearly 20% of its land.

“Being a rural area in a county that’s set up for urban and suburban services is really challenging,” Longbrake said.