Indy Parks free lunch program

A couple days ago, in attempting to discover some new parks, we encountered the Indianapolis Parks free lunch program in practice. After drizzle sent us from the empty Riverside Park, we decided to stop at the Fall Creek Park where a bunch of kids were playing. I noticed a woman sitting at a table with coolers, boxes of toys and other activities and thought maybe she was having a picnic.

A couple of the older girls playing tried to engage my boys in playing but they were too shy initially. Then a truck showed up from Indy Parks delivering 20 free lunches. The lady called all the kids over to eat and then a few minutes later came over to invite the boys to have a lunch too. They were quite excited about their sandwich, applesauce, juice and chocolate milk. I had heard that they did this at a park by my friend's house but didn't know it was citywide. And as I talked later to the lady, found out she also watches these kids (usually 20 or so but on this cool rainy day just less than 10) there all day and organizes the activities. I was truly impressed by this program.

After lunch, the kids did exercises and games and I encouraged the boys to participate. They were pretty reticent and clinging to me at first but by the time they had moved on to Duck Duck Goose, they were fully participating while I just watched. Isaac especially was good at running around the park avoiding being tagged while Ethan seemed to make up his own rules by running to the playground and staying there...

We had a great time and I will probably take them back there since they know some of the kids now and we will also check out what they do at Garfield Park near us.