The summer food program run by Powell Valley Hospital wrapped up another successful year on the last day of July with the tradition of a community barbecue. 

At the well attended event, complete with a water slide and a visit from a life flight helicopter, there was also a board where kids could put stickers on what foods they most liked and didn’t. Pita pizza and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were two of the favorite foods, while kids were much less enthused by grilled chicken strips and bell peppers. 

There were a lot of those two and many more items made over the course of the summer, as PVHC Nutrition Director Travis Tucker said 10,467 meals were given out over the summer at Homesteader and Southside parks. 

“It ran very smoothly between the two locations — Homesteader and Southside parks — seeing an average of 1,100 meals a week consistently,” he said.

While it was a roughly 425 meal decrease from the year before — Tucker said the slowdown was mainly during the hottest July days — the program has ramped up in the last two years. 

Over nine years the program has handed 60,736 meals, with the last two years making up a third of that total at 21,359. 

“It’s showing the need increasing in our community as food costs rise,” Tucker said.