Highlands Partnership Network plans 2nd food distribution

Highlands area community groups will hold another one-day food distribution next week to supplement efforts by the Highlands School District to get food to students while schools are closed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The Highlands Partnership Network announced it will distribute packed lunches for the week at five locations from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Monday.

The lunches are for Highlands School District students, and parents or students can pick them up. Each student can get five bagged lunches for the week that will include non-perishable breakfast items. Food will be available until the supply is gone.

Pick up locations are:

• Greg Blythe Friendship Garden, First Avenue and Bridge Street, Tarentum;

• West 6th Avenue playground, Tarentum;

• Salvation Army, 917 Brackenridge Ave., Brackenridge;

• Natrona Community Park, River Road, Harrison;

• Village Green Apartments, 240 Village Green Drive, Harrison.

Families in Fawn that would like to have lunches delivered are asked to contact the Highlands Partnership Network on its Facebook page for delivery.

At its first distribution on Wednesday, the partnership handed out 600 meals in 200 bags of food, with each bag having three days of lunches and breakfast items, according to Misty Chybrzynski, community development specialist for Allegheny Family Network and a former Highlands School Board member.

“Our volunteers were really on point with keeping people six feet apart and constantly wiping surfaces down with bleach and water and changing gloves after each interaction,” she said.

Highlands School District will have daily lunch to-go pick up for parents between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. weekdays throughout the remainder of the school closure.

The district’s locations are:

• Highlands High School, entrance door 23 nearest student parking lot;

• Highlands Elementary School, entrance door 22, nearest the cafeteria;

• The Hayden Center at Sheldon Park.