School lunches are shrinking in public schools across the nation due to regulations enforced by the Healthy, Hungry-Free Kids Act of 2010.
The new regulations require more fruits and vegetables, but for the first time they also mandate a calorie count for lunch. (The new calorie count for K-5 is 550 to 650, the calorie count for grades 6-8 is 600 to 700, and the calorie count for grades 9-12 is 750 to 850.)
When the Colville Warming Center got off the ground last year, things went off without a hitch---except volunteers to keep the facility opened and staffed were hard to come by. Established through Rural Resources and a local Christian Ministerial Association the center offered homeless people in the Colville Valley, a warm, safe place to go to during extreme cold weather conditions of 15 degrees or a high wind chill factor.
