Janie Freeman and Jayme Ball queried 17-year-old Carmen as she approached the lunch-laden table at Cedar Lanes Park Thursday afternoon:

How ’bout it, bud, watermelon or oranges? Watermelon. Turkey, or peanut butter and jelly? Peanut butter and jelly.

Carmen was one of 90 youngsters who came to the park Thursday behind Pioneer Elementary School for a nutritious lunch, courtesy of the Auburn School District’s summer lunch program.

Cedar Lanes is just one of 43 parks, schools, apartments, churches and community centers throughout the district that provides nutritious hot and cold meals Monday through Friday, June to August, free to all children ages 1 through 18 without regard to race, color, national origin, sex, age or disability.

“Here we have a good 90 kids, but we are at different sites. So in total we serve a lot of kids,” said Freeman, a volunteer with the popular program.

Eric Boutin, child nutrition supervisor for the Auburn School District, said the program serves just more than 2,000 meals a day, double what it provided during its inaugural year of 2005. In that first year, the program served up 40,000 lunches. By 2007, it served 75,000.

Boutin said those numbers should be up a bit this year.

“This summer, we have 43 sites,” Boutin said. “We started out with three station wagons to get the food where it needed to go, and now, we use five school buses. We have about 25 staff working every day. We have opened up more central kitchens during the summer, and Olympic Middle School is the biggest. It’s a tough, physical challenge for our summer staff, but they do a great job.”

The school district administers the federal funds that the state doles out, hires the personnel and prepares the food. Boutin said the best, and sometimes only, meals many children eat all day during the school year are provided by their school’s federally-funded meals program.

Food is provided by vendors, by farmer’s markets, and farms from Oakville to Fall City to Yakima.

“It’s such a great thing for the community,” Boutin said. “It’s not just a free meal, it’s that being properly fed helps kids of all ages learn better. Having a wider variety of kids eating is better for everybody.”

The summer feeding program started at the Family of Grace Church on Lea Hill when church members noticed an increase in poverty after the construction of the Cedar Ridge Apartments.

“It was originally started at this church several years ago,” said Chris White, office adminstrative manager for the church. “Originally, it was called the sack-lunch program. At first, it was one day a week then next year it was two days week.”

White said the church is one of the sites for the district’s summer program and served about 100 kids each day.

Then-Deputy Superintendent Kip Herren saw the church had a good idea, and the district decided to follow suit. When Boutin was hired, things were off and running.

“I think it’s one of the most successful programs for kids in terms of impact that this community has ever provided,” said Herren, now superintendent of the Auburn School District. “This community provides lots of support for kids. Kids not having food in the summertime is a tragedy … What this does is provide summertime support for all children so they have good nutrition. And the location of sites in parks, near libraries, near schools, has added to vitality of other programs.”

“This is the first time that I brought my kids down, and I think it’s pretty good,” said Nasheri Torres, keeping an eye on Emilio, 3, and 13-month-old Rodrigo at Cedar Lanes. “It works especially good for the kids that stay at home with no parents. They can come down and get a good lunch. It’s a good program.”

The program opened June 23 and will close Aug. 22.