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On a sunny summer weekday , a 15- passenger van pulled into the Woodland Park apartment complex in north Madison. A bunch of kids stood on the curb, assembled in a pseudo line, waiting for the van, excited and jostling for a better position. “You guys got Cheetos?” a little boy yelled out. The kids know the drill: the van comes every day to bring them free lunch and they wait as the volunteers set up the day's offerings: first carrots, then yogurt, crackers, a fruit snack, sandwich and juice boxes. The service is from The River Food Pantry as part of its Madison Urban Nutritional Children ’s Hotspot (MUNCH) program. When school’s not in session, MUNCH delivers lunch to kids eight north side low -income neighborhoods who might otherwise go without. THE NEED: ‘THIS IS ALL WE HAVE’ The MUNCH program started last summer and delivered over 10,000 lunches in 2016. This year, they’ve added more neighborhoods to their route and have already delivered over 30,000, with an average of ab...

CLOSE Family- friendly spots in NYC Wochit The Hills on Governor's Island. (Photo: Timothy Schenck 2016) During the last two weeks of summer, when summer camp is over but school has yet to begin, getting the kids out of the house is a must. And if you're not jetting off to Europe — or even heading down the shore — you're going to need a plan. Lucky for you, we have one. From a ferry ride out to Governor's Island to a tour of an aircraft carrier, from 65-million-year-old fossils to playful sea lions , very much alive, we have curated six fun trips to New York City that promise to keep your child not only occupied, but entertained. We've even included plans for lunch.  Kids' decor:: Little girls' backyard dream house comes to life Going 'round:: Take a spin on these magnificent carousels Governor's Island Governor's Island is a pretty magical place to escape to for the day, and there really is something for everyone in the family to enjoy. The ...

In the summer of 1995, Doug Robb and his friends snuck into Agoura High School in the middle of the night. Dressed in all black, they found the set of portable stages their alma mater used for its commencement ceremonies and wheeled them through a dirt track and onto the beds of pickup trucks they’d borrowed for the occasion. The next day, they set up the foldout stages in Robb’s parents’ backyard to play their first show as Hoobastank, a metal- influenced band they’d formed about six months prior. Robb eventually returned the stages to the school, but not before using them during a massive rager that attracted teens and 20-somethings from all over the area. Among them were the then-unknown members of Incubus and Linkin Park—bands that, along with Hoobastank, would go on to produce some of the biggest hits of the next century. What could’ve easily been just another house party thrown by bored kids in a wealthy LA suburb turned out to be the beginning of a rock-music scene that was...

Fans of best-selling crime novelist  Laura Lippman  will want to be sitting down for this announcement. Lippman’s next book, Sunburn ( William Morrow ), may come out in February 2018, but you can start reading it now. That’s right—Lippman, author of the acclaimed Tess Monaghan series , has exclusively shared the jaw-dropping cover of Sunburn for the very first time with  Parade , and she’s also giving us a sneak peek at the first few chapters. (Spoiler alert: We’re already hooked on Lippman’s newest characters, and you will be too.) When you’re done staring at the gorgeous cover, read on for an excerpt from  Sunburn . OneJune 11, 1995Belleville, Delaware It’s the sunburned shoulders that get him. Pink, peeling. The burn is two days old, he gauges. Earned on Friday, painful to the touch yesterday, today an itchy soreness that’s hard not to keep fingering, probing, as she’s doing right now in an absentminded way. The skin has started sloughing off, soon those narrow shoulders won ’t b...