Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
‘School Meal Hero’ defies lunch’s limitations
LANTANA — When Cyndi Talbott began work 17 years ago as cafeteria manager at a public school for the disabled, there were three puree combinations on the menu for students who couldn’t chew or swallow. Now there are 50. Talbott could feed Royal Palm School’s 357 medically needy students the same old recipe every day and they probably wouldn’t protest.
But because of her creativity and willingness to experiment, she has won a School Meal Hero award from ConAgra Foods, which operates the website, RethinkSchoolMeals.com.
The website invites school communities to show gratitude to their nutrition professionals by nominating them as School Meal Heroes. The Palm Beach County School District nominated Talbott.
Talbott said she feeds the school’s children and young adults — with disabilities such as cerebral palsy, seizure disorders, profound mental handicaps and autism — as she would her own. Most can’t speak. Aides feed many by spoon, while others get nutrition through feeding tubes.
Tears well in her eyes as she describes their role in her life.
“Parents have put a lot of trust in me to do this,” said Talbott, 50, a mother of three who lives in Loxahatchee. “The more combinations I can come up with, the more kids we can feed.”
Talbott said she wasn’t sure Royal Palm School was the right place for her when she started work in 1999. She said she cried for the first three days on the job.
“I had never seen such profound handicaps,” she said. “My bosses were sure I wouldn’t come back.”
But Talbott became deeply attached to the students, who range in age from 3 to 22.
“She treats this job like these are her own kids,” teacher Cecilia Nevitt said. “She’ll do anything we ask.”
Nevitt said feeding the six students in her classroom is a slow task that requires patience and concentration. Each student is fed by an aide; one has to monitor how quickly a student’s formula is going through her feeding tube, while others offered students Talbott’s daily puree by spoon, watching them closely to make sure those with weak swallowing mechanisms didn’t choke.
Talbott also offers a traditional cafeteria line for the 80 students who can walk, as well as her daily meal in chopped form and a thicker pureed consistency, similar to honey, each to suit students of varying ingestion
abilities.
Talbott has experimented with her industrialstrength blending machine and come up with pureed peanut butter and jelly, teriyaki chicken with broccoli and turkey-gravy-sweet potatoes. She has discovered not every food can be pureed to meet students’ needs, including cheese, corn and rice.
Parent Sheri Hazeltine of Delray Beach said she is thrilled not to have to make pureed foods each night to send to school with her son, Rex Blazer III, 20, who has cerebral palsy.
“These are really fragile kids, because they can choke so easily,” Hazeltine said. “Everything has to be done just right. Thank God for her.”