After a two-year hiatus, the Lunch Buddy program is coming back to Wellsville-Middletown Elementary School this year.

The program allows volunteers to eat lunch with students once a week at the school cafeteria. It is part of the W-M Bright Futures organization, which helps schools meet the needs of the students.

“Anyone who has a child who is important in their life is just that much richer,” said W-M Elementary Principal Tiffany Gosseen, the program’s coordinator. “It’s just the most important thing ever to see that you’re making a difference in a child’s life and to know that their life will be a little bit better. Yours will absolutely be better for helping out a kid.”

The school didn’t have the Lunch Buddy program for the last two years due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“These COVID years have been tough,” Gosseen said. “We haven’t had parents who were able to come in here.”

The program was first held at the school during the 2017-18 school year. It was held again the following year.

“The kids loved it,” Gosseen said. “They looked forward to it. They wanted to know what day their buddy was coming. We would come into the office and I would walk them down to whichever classroom they were going to. They were just excited and the kids who didn’t have a lunch buddy wanted one.”

Gosseen said the program had 10 lunch buddies during the first year.

“The feedback we got after the first year was really positive,” the principal said. “Of course, with any new program or initiative, there’s a certain learning curve. The main feedback that I got that first year is that it gets loud in that cafeteria. There are 75-80 kids in the cafeteria. We actually had small lunches because we added a lunch shift. So there are fewer kids who are in the gym. That doesn’t mean it’s a whole lot quieter.”

Gosseen said W-M school board member Clinetta Weinrich came up with the idea of having the Lunch Buddy program and got some funds to help pay for bistro tables.

“Unfortunately, I never got to know her as a teacher,” Gosseen said. “She retired the year before I came. Since then, she has been a wonderful substitute teacher for us and she served on our school board for years now. There’s nothing Clinetta can do. If she sees a need for something, she’s going to figure out how we could meet that need. She’s not going to let a family go without food, clothes or other resources.”

The Mexico School District also has a Lunch Buddy program. It started in 2014 when the school district began its partnership with Bright Futures.

“Mexico started their Bright Futures journey before we did,” Gosseen said. “Lunch Buddies was something that they were doing. Someone from Mexico would come in and talk about their Bright Futures initiative. The lunch buddy program was an idea that just jumped out and absolutely grabbed us. It was something we definitely wanted to try here. It took a little work to get it organized the first time around.”

To register in the lunch buddy program, contact Gosseen at 573-684-2047 or gosseen@wm1.k12.mo.us.