Free hot meals for students were discontinued at Gordon J. Lau Elementary School last week, a central Chinatown site used by hundreds of neighborhood families.
Beginning Thursday, those meals are back.
Public furor erupted when the Chinatown site, part of the San Francisco Unified School District's Grab & Go meal program, stopped serving meals and announced the Lau site would move to the Tenderloin neighborhood, as part of a reorganization due to the reopening of some schools. The program was designed to feed students missing out on free meals while they learned from home.
But the rising number of racist attacks against the Asian community left many families afraid to travel for food, especially on public transit. And while Gordon J. Lau Elementary has reopened to students, many have opted to stay in distance learning from home, prompting Supervisor Aaron Peskin to work with SFUSD Superintendent Vincent Matthews to recruit some of the city's disaster service workers to staff an extra site and ensure meals are still available for kids who aren't yet ready to return to class.
Peskin says the school district should have recognized the problem without the community having to sound the alarm.
"There is a systemic problem at the San Francisco Unified School District as to how they honor the Chinese American community," Peskin said.
Peskin says the school will be serving roughly 500 meals to students Thursday.