North Myrtle Beach Times Serving our Community and the Grand Strand for over 50 years
By Ruben Lowman
In a direct institutional response to pervasive food insecurity in the local area, Horry County Schools has finalized the plans for its federally-backed 2026 Summer Nutrition Program, which offers free meals to students.
Under the executive direction of HCS Nutrition Services Director Kim Johnson and funded via an inter-governmental partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the South Carolina Department of Education, the multi-year program will officially begin on June 10.
The emergency meal infrastructure spans 14 strategically distributed public school campuses across the district, offering free, nutritious breakfast and lunch options to any child aged 18 and younger while regular school term operations are closed.
The summer program is tightly engineered across three separate academic tiers to streamline food distribution logistics.
Four HCS elementary schools, including Loris Elementary, will anchor the first tier from June 10 through July 7, opening their cafeterias for breakfast from 7 to 8 a.m. and lunch from 10:30 to 11 a.m.
The second tier extends through July 14 across six middle school and alternative sites, including North Myrtle Beach Middle School.
The final high school tier runs through July 17 at four local campuses, including both Loris and North Myrtle Beach High.
Both the middle and high school facilities will limit operations to a lunch-only window from 10:30 to 11 a.m., with high school sites executing a mandatory operational pause from June 29 through July 3 to accommodate federal mid-summer holiday schedules.
To comply with rigid USDA regulatory standards and ensure baseline safety protocols, HCS officials confirmed that all summer meals must be consumed entirely on-site.
Additionally, the district requires all participating children to be accompanied by an adult chaperone, though families are permitted to utilize whichever of the 14 participating school facilities is closest to their residence.
Officials emphasized that the program acts as a critical lifeline for local working-class households, bridging the nutritional gap for thousands of students who rely heavily on school-year meal subsidies but face immediate, severe food shortages when the standard academic calendar concludes in June.
