Summer Meals a Success in 2025

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Volunteers wearing hairnets standing in the kitchen, smiling and holding up kitchen utensils

Our Summer Meals program was a huge success this year!

In 2024, we served free lunch once a week as a pilot program. This year, with the help of the United Methodist Church of Mount Vernon (UMCMV) and First Presbyterian Church of Mount Vernon, we were able to expand the program to serve free meals every weekday throughout the summer. Meals were provided three days a week at SELCC and twice a week at the churches in Mount Vernon.

All meals were prepared in SELCC’s commercial kitchen by staff and volunteers. Meals were open to all, including kids who were home alone and rode their bikes to lunch, kids who came with their babysitters, and grandparents who brought their grandkids. We also served several families throughout the summer who were struggling to balance working from home with caring for their children.

We served 2,666 meals total, averaging 49 attendees per day. Leftovers were packaged and distributed to community members through our food pantry, leaving us with zero food waste. 

In addition to enjoying meals together with neighbors, people were encouraged to select and take home fresh produce provided by SELCC’s community gardens and local growers. At the end of each week, we also gave out weekend snack bags to each child. Five hundred eighty-one snack bags were distributed throughout the summer.

Children had the chance to socialize and to stay for free enrichment activities some afternoons, freeing up their parents’ or grandparents’ time for work responsibilities. The energy was amazing!

This program was truly a collaborative effort. In the spring, our Activities Coordinator worked with the local school cafeteria staff to plan meals based on the students’ favorites. We met with UMCMV and First Presbyterian Church leaders to plan scheduling, volunteer recruitment, and publicity.

More than 110 volunteers assisted with meals throughout the summer, providing over 800 hours of service. Church volunteers helped with cooking, transporting food, serving meals, cleaning up, and packing leftovers.

Thanks so much to Gary’s Foods for doing a “register round-up,” and to all the shoppers who contributed! Funding was also provided by a private donor and a grant from the Linn County Fund at the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation.

We are excited to continue our Summer Meals program next year!

Community Garden Ribbon Cutting

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Row of people standing outside in a garden, cutting a celebratory ribbon at an open house

On Friday, August 1, from 4:30-6pm, we celebrated our new community garden collaboration with Seeds of Faith Lutheran Church in Lisbon! Community leaders, volunteers, and church members were invited to join our board of directors and staff for a ribbon cutting, followed by light refreshments. Thanks to the Mount Vernon-Lisbon Community Development Group for making the arrangements!

The new permanent location replaces our original community garden that was on loaned space near the Rehabilitation Center of Lisbon. After receiving grant funding for the raised beds and fencing, the garden installation at Seeds of Faith took place in spring 2025, with all volunteer labor, including Linn County Master Gardeners.

In addition to supplying fresh produce to SELCC and the neighbors we serve, the garden provides a tranquil green space for events, such as yoga. It also offers learning opportunities for youth groups.

Our volunteers continue to maintain our second community garden located near the Lester Buresh Family Community Wellness Center in Mount Vernon. We are so excited to now have two permanent community gardens and can’t wait for next season!

Highlighted in PBS News article

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Volunteers unloading bulk food items from personal truck and taking items into Southeast Linn Community Center

Southeast Linn Community Center was honored to be highlighted in a PBS News article about the challenges of the Healthy Kids Iowa program.

While we are glad to see the state of Iowa working to address summer hunger, SELCC continues to advocate for more efficient, effective programs such as Summer EBT.

Shout out to HACAP, our food bank partner, and to all of our amazing SELCC volunteers who worked hard to get food to as many kids as possible within the parameters of the Healthy Kids Iowa pilot program.

August Highlights

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Wow! This month has been packed. Besides all of our usual programs, we wrapped up our summer kids’ activities,  hosted a QPR suicide prevention training for staff & volunteers, distributed free school supplies & backpacks to 173 Mount Vernon & Lisbon students, helped host the Celebrate Community Fair in Lisbon, served as a cooling station during Sauerkraut Days, and joined the groundbreaking event for new senior housing in Mount Vernon. Thanks to all of our amazing volunteers who made all of this possible!

New Training Opportunity: Mental Health First Aid

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We’re thrilled to offer a FREE training day for all of our staff, volunteers and community members. Thanks to our friends at the Wellness Coalition of Rural Linn County the usual $80 fee for this training is waived! Join us Friday, October 4th from 9:00-4:30 at SELCC. Lunch will be provided. Pre-registration is required and space is limited, so reserve your spot today! Register here. 

WHY MENTAL HEALTH FIRST AID? Mental Health First Aid (MHFA) teaches you how to identify, understand and respond to signs of mental health and substance use challenges among adults.

From our friends at the Iowa Hunger Coalition:

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The Iowa Hunger Coalition (IHC) is launching an online petition to urge Gov. Kim Reynolds to take steps to ensure Iowa participates in Summer EBT in 2025. IHC has set a goal of gathering 2,500 signatures by Friday, August 2. Iowans can sign the petition by visiting iowahungercoalition.org/summer-ebt.

“It’s past time for Gov. Reynolds to put national partisan politics aside and do what’s right for Iowa,” said Luke Elzinga, IHC board chair and policy and advocacy manager at the DMARC Food Pantry Network. “We are calling on all Iowans to take action and hold our state government accountable. Nobody should be willing to accept another summer where hundreds of thousands of low-income kids in our state miss out on Summer EBT.”

Summer EBT, also known as SUN Bucks, is the first new federal childhood nutrition program in two decades, and was created by a bipartisan act of Congress in December 2022. Iowa notably

declined to participate in Summer EBT  in 2023, a decision strongly opposed by the Iowa Hunger Coalition. Iowa is one of 13 states that chose not to participate in Summer EBT in 2023. The program would provide $120 in nutrition benefits during the summer to 245,000 children in Iowa who qualify for free and reduced price school meals. Summer EBT is  evidence-based policy, and has been shown to reduce childhood food insecurity while increasing consumption of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and dairy. 

“With household budgets stretched thin, families are facing incredibly difficult decisions to put food on the table this summer,” said Sheila Hansen, IHC board member and senior policy advocate and government relations manager at Common Good Iowa. “Meanwhile, the state of Iowa is sitting on a two-billion dollar surplus. Summer EBT is an incredibly effective use of state funds that would make a profound impact in the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of Iowans.”

Food banks, food pantries, and other anti-hunger organizations across the state of Iowa continue to face record-breaking numbers of people turning to them for assistance. Advocates trace the beginning of this trend back to April 2022, when Emergency Allotments for SNAP ended, drastically reducing benefit amounts for Iowans enrolled in the program.

“On top of the sustained increases we’d already been seeing at food banks and pantries over the past two years, this summer has been absolutely relentless, no matter where you are in the state,” said Nicole McAlexander, executive director of Southeast Linn Community Center and vice chair of IHC’s board. “Similar to individuals, organizations are facing difficult financial decisions, and staff and volunteers are being pushed to the limit to make sure the need is met.”

The Iowa Hunger Coalition is also coordinating an organizational sign-on letter, and is separately urging nonprofit organizations, faith communities, businesses, clubs, and other civic groups to contact the Governor’s office, Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, and Iowa Department of Education in support of Summer EBT.

SELCC News 7-2-24

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Heritage Days Parade

Join us for the Heritage Days Parade on Saturday, July 13th in Mount Vernon. We’ll have a decorated truck and would love to have lots of SELCC supporters walk or ride with us. Line up for the parade is by the Cornell Football field and begins at 9:30, with the parade starting at 10:30. The parade theme is Rockin 80’s so feel free to dress up if you’d like or wear SELCC colors (blue, pink, green, orange). We’ll send out a reminder email with all of the details to everyone who submits an rsvp. RSVP here!

Community Lunches Resume July 11th

We’re loving hosting free lunches every Thursday. This week we’ll be closed for the holiday, but we’ll be back at it next Thursday through August 15th. Lunches are served 12:00-12:45 and at 1:00 we offer a free movie & popcorn, thanks to our partner Lisbon Library. All ages are welcome.Thank you to everyone who donated to make these lunches possible!

Rename our Congregate Meal Program

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After the interruption of the pandemic we’re excited to re-open our congregate meals, in partnership with Horizons. We’d love to have your help in renaming the program. Names could highlight the history of the program, previous participants, or a local landmark or story. Suggestions will be accepted through June 3, with a selection made prior to the grand re-opening on Friday, June 17th. Submit your idea here. Learn more about congregate meals here.