The municipal program 'Menjadors a casa' continues during the month of July

The municipal program 'Menjadors a casa', promoted by Benidorm City Council, will continue during the month of July, serving the city's school population with dining scholarships of types B to F. This was reported today by the mayor, Toni Pérez, and the Councilor for Education, Maite Moreno, who have specified that “since the launch of this program on April 7, nearly 84,000 menus have been delivered to students with a dining scholarship excluded from the voucher system of purchase 'of the Ministry of Education ”.

The mayor recalled that the City Council started this program “in order to serve all of this school population while the suspension of academic activity lasted due to the Covid-19 health crisis, supplying the traditional dining room service with the delivery of weekly menus for these minors, regardless of whether they coincide with holidays or holidays such as Easter ". However, “at the end of May, we decided to extend this program throughout June, taking into account the extraordinary situation caused by the health crisis, which is also an economic and social crisis; and for that same reason, although the school year ended almost two weeks ago, we have decided to extend this program also at least during the month of July ”.

Pérez added that "when making this decision, we have taken into account the opinions and needs of the families, who in a very important percentage transferred to us at the end of May that were favorable to the continuity of 'Menjadors a casa' " "In most cases, this need remains, so in addition to continuing with our program we believe that it is essential that the Ministry pay the committed and unsatisfied dining room scholarships to the beneficiaries of the scholarships from B to F, Or specify the aid that Minister Marzá announced for them almost two months ago. "

For its part, the councillor of Education has indicated that "the operation of 'Menjadors a casa' will continue to be the same as until now, with the delivery of balanced weekly menus and 5th range prepared by a local company and composed of first and second courses, dairy, fruit and water. " After stressing that the menus follow "very strict sanitary and dietary controls", Moreno reported that "we are going to maintain the same six distribution points for the menus and the delivery will be given on a single day."

Evolution of 'Menjadors home'

In its first installment, the program served more than 500 Infant and Primary schoolchildren with type B, C and D scholarships. From the second installment, 'Menjadors a casa' was also extended to the beneficiaries of type scholarships E and F until reaching nearly 1,000 schoolchildren. The number of users has been modulating according to the weeks, with an average attendance of between 850 and 900 schoolchildren. In addition to minors with scholarships from B to F, the beneficiaries of Type A scholarships who had incidents with the Conselleria compra purchase vouchers ’have also been treated.”

During the nearly 3 months of operation of ‘Menjadors a Casa’, various companies have collaborated with this program, donating food that has been included in the weekly lots that have been delivered to families. The delivery points have been attended by volunteers from the RAC (Collective Aid Network), who this week have joined the Red Cross.

At the end of May, the City Council gave families a short questionnaire to find out their needs and the degree of satisfaction with the service. Of the more than 400 families that answered the questionnaire, 95% were in favor of continuing the program. Furthermore, 80% rated the degree of satisfaction with the program as 10; 97.2% highlighted that the menus were nutritionally balanced; 93.3% rated the care provided by the volunteers as 'very good'; and practically 100% considered the collection points authorized by the Benidorm City Council to be correct.