Nutritious Lunch Sells For 40 Cents

Each morning at Pioneer High School some 135 lunches are packaged and then delivered to Northside Elementary School as part of the Ann Arbor Schools' own lunch program. Seven hours a day sandwiches and salads are made and then placed in insulated containers for refrigeration until Northside delivery. These cold pack "type A" lunches usually contain one sandwich, a salad, fruit, milk and occasionally a cookie, and the lunch provides onethird of the daily nutriment requirement. The total labor cost for the program is $25 per day and cost per lunch (including labor, food and paper supplies) is about 56 cents. Cost per student is 40 cents and 60 cents for adults. A reimbursement of 35 cents is given to the schools for free lunches and school officials assume that they will get at least that much for the Northside program. There is no reimbursement for adult lunches. One cafetería w o r k e r receives the packaged food at Northside and she trays a complete lunch for the students to piek up when they come through the line. The same person keeps a record of the lunches sold and those given free and this involves about three hours work aj day. The Board of Education originally authorized a pilot hot lunch program for the elementary schools but because of the need for additional equipment, cold pack lunches will be used until bidding is completed and necessary facilities are added. Out of four schools picked for a pilot lunch program, Northside is the only one prepared to receive a cold-pack lunch at this time. According to John Hubley, assistant superintendent for community services, "Northside has the space, additional equipment is not required and there is no need for additional supervisión." Three other schools scheduled for the program presently have electrical wiring bids out for consideration. Mack School will not be able to have the program due to extensive fire damage resulting in limited space and the necessity to use the auditorium for classes instead of the hot lunch program as originally planned. _aaMB