AUBURN — At 11:30 on Tuesday, Joyce Campbell made the call.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it’s time for lunch. Please get a chair and line up.”

A line formed in the Boys & Girls Club gym.

“Apple juice or milk?” staffer Lee Klarman asked as students collected lunches.

At one table, Austin Levesque, 9, Rachel Dunn, 9, and others had trays containing a chicken wrap on whole wheat, grape tomatoes, half a banana and graham crackers.

The lunch is free, regardless of income, to those ages 18 and younger from Monday through Friday, courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. To fight childhood hunger when schools are out, the federal Department of Agriculture’s summer meal programs provide breakfast and lunch to children in low-income communities across the country.

“It’s completely subsidized by the federal government,” said Alisa Roman, who heads the nutrition program for Lewiston Public Schools.

The list of Lewiston-Auburn sites where summer lunches are given out has grown.

The sites include Farwell Elementary School, Lewiston High School, Lewiston Middle School, Auburn Middle School, the YWCA and YMCA, Longley Elementary, New Beginnings, Montello Elementary, Somali Bantu Youth Association of Maine, Auburn’s PAL (Police Activities League) Center, Lewiston’s Kennedy Park, Walton Elementary School, Auburn Recreation Department, Sherwood Heights Elementary, Washburn Elementary, Park Avenue Elementary, Auburn Middle School and more.

Lunches are also served at the Oak Hill Middle School in Sabattus, Lisbon Elementary School, Poland Community School, Memorial School in New Gloucester, Elm Street School in Mechanic Falls, Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School and more.

Some sites serve students enrolled in summer programs. Others, like Park Avenue School, are drop-in centers where anyone 18 and younger can get lunch.

“We have a lot of families who show up for lunch,” Campbell said of the Boys & Girls Club. “If they’re showing up at lunchtime, it’s definitely a need,” she said.

Some sites also serve free breakfast — mostly cold cereal.

The lunches are prepared by school nutrition staff. In Lewiston, the food is made at the high school; in Auburn, at the middle school.

“Yesterday we made close to 600 lunches,” said kitchen manager Cindy Baril and she and three other workers wrapped food on trays about to be loaded into a van for delivery. They start their day at 6 a.m. The numbers of sites and students served are growing. “We’re busy,” Baril said. They plan to serve more this year.

Lewiston serves among the most summer lunches in Maine: 2,000 a day.

Roman doesn’t think it’s enough. During the school year the schools feed 4,900 students.

“My concern is that not enough children are getting food,” she said, adding once her numbers are closer to the school year numbers, she’ll know those who need food are getting it. “I want to make sure kids know even though they’re not enrolled in a summer program, there’s a place they can go.”

The cold lunches Baril’s team was preparing looked attractive. The meals mean parents don’t have to worry about providing lunch for their children. They also mean some children who otherwise would go hungry get to eat, workers said, sharing how some children come in with adults just for lunch. The adults are not fed.

“I’d like to get more of those kids,” Baril said, adding she feels good about what she does.

U.S. Department of Agriculture Deputy Secretary Kevin Concannon said he’s thrilled that Lewiston and Auburn are expanding summer meal sites. A former Maine Department of Human Services Commissioner, Concannon said he visited two summer meal sites in San Diego, Ca., on Tuesday. The program is vital, he said.

“Summer is the time of year an American child is likely to go hungry because the schools are out, and schools have become an important source of meals and nutrition, lunch and breakfast,” Concannon said. “It’s really important to get healthy food to kids all summer, so when they go back to school in the fall they’re ready to learn.”

He hears from teachers who share they can tell which students “had a rough summer in terms of uncertainty there’ll be any food in the fridge.” Maine does a great job feeding children during the school year, Concannon said. “Summer is something we can improve upon across the country.”

Lewiston’s Roman said she hears from those who support the free lunches and those who complain government is doing too much. She sides with children.

“It’s for children,” Roman said. “When you’ve watched a hungry six-year-old show up, you’re glad you can help them. It’s a need taken care of.”

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