Jinju City Expands Meal Support for 'Children Facing Food Insecurity' Due to COVID-19 School Opening Delay

Joo Kyu-il, mayor of Jinju City, is visiting a local children's center to encourage the children.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters, Reporter Kang Sharon] Jinju City in Gyeongnam announced on the 13th that it is rapidly expanding meal support for children at risk of food insecurity due to the spread of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19).

Since local children's centers that provided meals to children closed from February 24, 540 children using these centers?including low-income dual-income families, single-parent families, and multicultural families?were at risk of missing meals.

In response, the city quickly mobilized local children's center staff and social service agents to deliver lunchboxes to the children's residences, enabling them to eat at home.

Previously, Jinju City distributed child meal cards to students at risk of food insecurity and supported them by providing alternative foods such as lunchboxes or purchasing ingredients on weekends and holidays.

After the recent decision to postpone school openings due to COVID-19, the city has additionally supported about 2,300 students at risk of food insecurity by providing 4,500 KRW per meal on weekdays for the number of days the school opening was delayed.

Joo Kyu-il, mayor of Jinju City, said, "Supporting the purchase of alternative foods such as lunchboxes for children at risk of food insecurity is a measure to protect the health of low-income vulnerable children and to prevent infectious diseases," adding, "We will carefully implement this so that no child misses a meal."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.