HAMILTON, Ohio -- Students from Hamilton City Schools will have access to free and healthy meals from the district's first food truck.

Cinde Gorbandt, the school district's director of dining services, is behind the wheel of the truck and also behind the idea. She said the goal is to teach the children how to eat and cook healthy food.

"Hamilton definitely has the need for help with different foods, showing them how to eat healthy, but good," Gorbandt said.

Of the 9,800 students in the school district, 73 percent rely on reduced and free meals, according to Gorbandt. The district sends home hundreds of backpacks with food home with students on the weekends, but in some cases neither the students nor their parents know how to prepare it.

"It's just eye-opening when you're in the district and see what's going on and not going on in the homes," she said.

The truck will serve all 13 schools in the district, visiting at least one a week.

"One of the things that is hard to come by is the money to buy food, and when we're asking them to eat healthy, that's even more difficult for families to come up with because healthy food is more expensive than just junk," Gorbandt said.