Rexburg businesses give free lunches to schoolkids

Justin Zonts, general manager at Gator Jacks in Rexburg, said his business had a goal to feed as many local children for free as they could. The restaurant started giving out lunches at noon. By 2 p.m., they had given away 400 sandwiches.

Zonts said they partnered with John Adams GMC and Gorilla Performance to provide food to families whose children are not in school.

He said local schools are doing everything they can in the wake of closing because of the coronavirus outbreak, but the businesses wanted to give another option to those who may not want to go into the school or who may be home-schooled.

Zonts said they made it safe by having grab-and-go packages to limit the amount of time children and parents spent inside the restaurant. The lunch included a sandwich, chips, a cookie and a drink.

John Adams, owner of John Adams GMC, said they gave away about 100 to 120 bagged lunches within the first 20 minutes.

Barry Pierce, owner of Gorilla Performance, said they wanted to give out as much as they possibly could.

Both Adams and Pierce echoed Zonts’ remarks — they wanted to give back in some way.

“We just decided to give back to the community. Honestly, people need it right now,” Pierce said. “A lot of people are stressing out about what’s going on. We’ve been fortunate with what’s going on. We’ve been fortunate with all our businesses, so we decided just to give back.”

Pierce said people in the community are already being laid off of work. They hope this will bring some peace of mind.

“We just want everyone to have a smile on their face for a couple minutes, take some of the stress off,” Adams said.

Zonts said they want to do this again but aren’t sure how often they’ll have it. He said this wouldn’t have been possible without the help of John Adams GMC and Gorilla Performance.