TRAVERSE CITY — Traverse Area Public Schools’ Sunshine Bus offers new enrichment activities this summer.
The district’s Student Support Network runs the Sunshine Bus, in partnership with the Father Fred Foundation, and offers activities in addition to providing free food and essentials to students throughout the summer months.
The program, in its fourth year, runs from June 17 through Sept. 3, with no service from July 5 to July 11. The bus travels around the district visiting eight locations in the early afternoon Wednesday through Friday.
Last summer, the Sunshine Bus provided more than 2,200 meal bags to more than 400 individual students. Although the program is run by TCAPS, Katie Kubesh, Student Support Network coordinator, said they don’t turn anyone away.
She said “kids love it” and, last year, when the bus pulled up on the first day, “they were already out there waiting.”
This year, kids can receive enrichment bags based on special themes for each week. For example, there is a week focused on physical fitness and the bags will include things like jump ropes and balls. Another week is focused on growing and the bags will include packets of seeds and cups to plant them in.
Weekly themes include activities such as “Summer Reading: Let the Games Begin” and “Three, Two, One Blast Off Back to School.”
Board President Scott Newman-Bale called the new programming “an amazing opportunity” to keep students occupied and outside over the summer months at a recent TCAPS board meeting.
The program also supplies essential items like toothpaste, deodorant and body wash. Transportation and essentials are funded through the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians 2% allocation.
Kids and their parents can also request things like laundry detergent, toilet paper or sanitizing wipes. Typically these requests are made to the bus driver.
Two bus drivers load up the food from Father Fred Foundation on Wednesday, run the routes and distribute the supplies. Kubesh said she’s the only person staffing the Student Support Network over the summer and tries to get out there as much as she can.
The department covers some of the costs of the program, “so it’s kind of a braiding of funds,” Kubesh said. The district does not fund the Student Support Network, the department is funded through grants, donations and the NMC Foundation.
‘But then the food comes out’
The Sunshine Bus began during the pandemic as a way to get food out to students who didn’t have access to regular meals.
“And then, when school came back in-person, we realized over the summer there’s still that demand,” Kubesh said. The Student Support Network was just getting off the ground at that time and she said it was a “natural fit” for her department to take over the project.
They provide “ready to assemble” meals like tortillas with cans of black beans and salsa or shelf-stable milk and cereal for kids who might be home alone during the summer while the parents are working.
The Student Support Network runs the program but the food is provided and paid for through Father Fred’s SHINE program. Both organizations are focused on helping children experiencing homelessness, which the federal government defines as “individuals who lack a fixed, regular and adequate nighttime residence.”
So these might be students who are staying in other homes or camping, Kubesh said, and the locations the bus stops at were chosen to best serve those children and “meet them where they’re at.”
And the kids look forward to it. Kubesh said that she usually brings books when she visits, and the kids “get really excited—but then the food comes out.” Last summer Step Up Northern Michigan brought fresh produce and the kids were fascinated with the “different colors of carrots or a five-pound bag of potatoes,” she said with a laugh.
Kubesh said that parents are complaining that “it’s so hard right now with the economy and food prices,” which is making it harder for them to buy healthy food.
But the Sunshine bus is about more than just food or entertainment, she said, it helps TCAPS continue to stay connected to their most vulnerable students.
“It’s our most vulnerable, I hate to use that word, but it is our most vulnerable population of students,” Kubesh said. “So it’s just an easy way for us to stay engaged with them through the summer, help them with enrollment and make sure that they stay in school and start the year successfully.”