Own Food

[dingledine]

I am with the mountainview food program, and I have a mom that wants to bring her own food. How does this work? Am I ALLOWED to have someone that brings whatever food they want? I think the mom is trying to be health conscious, although we are pretty health conscious here already. How does this work?

[Michael]

I placed some tags at the bottom that may help.

[LaLa1923]

Originally Posted by dingledine

I am with the mountainview food program, and I have a mom that wants to bring her own food. How does this work? Am I ALLOWED to have someone that brings whatever food they want? I think the mom is trying to be health conscious, although we are pretty health conscious here already. How does this work?

First, if you serve food then I would not allow someone to bring food from home. That will cause a lot of problems. You have to provide the food on the food program. That's what my food worker said. They do not have to eat it, just be OFFERED the food.

[MissAnn]

Is there a medical reason? Even with a medical reason, you have to provide the food to keep her on food program. I was told a mom of a gluten free child could
Bring in the food but I'd have to reimburse her and she'd have to give me grocery receipts. I just feed all kids gluten free and I kept her on food program.

[heyhun77]

They can opt out of participating in the food program and bring their own food. You can't claim them for any meals but it's possible. I had this come up over the summer with a family that choose to do lactose, gluten, GMO, chemical free everything but for person, not medical reasons. Oh and they were mostly vegan and didn't want the kids to drink tap water. For more reasons than this they didn't last long here but I could do food program. There is a box you check for not enrolling on the paperwork.

[Cradle2crayons]

I would call your food program rep and ask.

Here where I am, I'm not allowed to opt ANY child out of the food program regardless of reason and no parents are allowed to bring food.

Even if I had a choice, I wouldn't allow parents to bring food anyway.

[butterfly]

You can opt out of the food program for select children. You just wouldn't get reimbursed for those kids/meals.

I agree with others about bringing in separate meals for just that child can cause issues. I have several kids with different allergies here, my biggest concern would be if what they were bringing would cause a reaction for someone else if they were to get a hold of any of it.