One million meals served
“We are often the only people they see frequently enough with the ability to provide this type of assistance, even if it is not typical ‘lunch lady’ duties.” Alecia Woods Child Nutrition director
PALMDALE — As of July 9, Palmdale School District’s child nutrition staff served one million meals since school sites shutdown in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Child Nutrition Director Alecia Woods announced.
“When the true impact of the pandemic became apparent and the little things in life were suddenly not as important, every human still had five basic needs,” she said in a statement. “Without skipping a beat, the lunch guys and gals were here to help.”
That is nearly double the amount of meals the Child Nutrition Department would have served had campuses remained open through the end of the academic year. According to the Child Nutrition Department, they would have served 560,623 meal from March to June 5, the last day of school.
Running nine lunch sites takes a small army of workers with five to 15 at a site. The
crews are staggered between the hours of 6:15 a.m. to 2:45 p.m., Monday through Friday. One shift prepares the food and one shift serves the food to lines of cars that wrap around neighborhoods each day.
Procurement specialist, Lori Fawkes, manages the $5 million food budget and coordinates ordering and delivery and ensures milk and produce go directly to the sites to ensure maximum freshness.
In addition to the Child Nutrition staff, Amber Bukey-Samdin is a dietetic intern from Loma Linda University who has been providing information for families that span across the entire healthful living spectrum, supporting the department’s focus to encourage healthy choices for all families.
Until the March shutdown, bus drivers were providing meals to 35 students who are homeless or unable to get to serving locations, but still need assistance. These families were identified by site principals, Aaron Yoscovitz the district’s Homeless, Foster and Mental Health Liaison and by community partners such as Valley Oasis. Now, the child nutrition administrators, including Woods, Catherine Traugott, Johna Avila and Fawkes have been making the deliveries.
With community support, these families have been provided basic needs such as paper towels, school supplies and they are being helped in obtaining EBT cards.
“We are often the only people they see frequently enough with the ability to provide this type of assistance, even if it is not typical ‘lunch lady’ duties,” Woods said.