Kitchen boosters
No Kid Hungry awards $50,000 grant to Crane
‘Helping communities feed kids.” That’s what the No Kid Hungry campaign by nonprofit organization Share
Our Strength seeks to do through the grants it provides. In Yuma County, No Kid Hungry has shown support again this year by way of a $50,000 grant it’s awarded to the Crane School District.
Nutrition Director Michael Clark reports that the funds will be used to provide needed equipment for the kitchen at Ronald Reagan Elementary School.
“When Reagan was first built, it actually wasn’t equipped with a full kitchen or cafeteria,” Clark said. “It was going to be a back-to-basics campus and that meant that parents provided meals for their own children at the time they drop their kids off every day.
“After a little while, they said, ‘Well, you know, we’ll have milk there so you can buy a nice cold milk to go with your lunch.’ And then it kind of grew from there. While the program grew and the need increased, they never got any equipment to help facilitate that, so they never had an oven.”
The strategy had then become to prepare food offsite and bring it to the campus, but Clark noted that that method compromises food quality and freshness. Despite being kept safe to eat, it’s not very appealing, and fewer kids are inclined to finish their meals.
“That’s been one of our challenges, so we are hoping to ultimately enhance the quality of the food that we’re producing and the level of acceptability by the children that we provide those meals to,” Clark said. “This will help us to be able to do a lot more from-scratch cooking at the site.”
Additionally, the district is hoping Reagan will continue to provide outreach and support to the community. With the grant’s help, Clark envisions that the school may be able to help smaller daycare facilities that are struggling to provide meals for kids or other groups that service kids like the YMCA.
“During the summertime months, Reagan is right next to a big complex of Marine housing, so the families that are right next to Ronald Reagan then will be able to just walk over and enjoy meals during the breaks,” Clark explained. “That will help be a resource to them in
the years to come. So that then, our fighting men and women and their families can help be taken care of while they’re away serving our country.”
Since Reagan was never built with the idea that it’d have a full kitchen, Clark shared that there are various things, like the lack of a good ventilation system, that he had to consider in choosing proper equipment for the school. It costs $250,000 to install a hood and to structurally reinforce the ceiling and roof, but the ovens with a ventless system that the grant will cover cost about $20,000 each –a more affordable solution.
In addition to the special double stack oven, Clark is looking to get two rethermalizers, which use water vapor to warm food. The ones he plans to bring to Reagan will also be able to bake and roast food, meaning that they’ll have multiple uses for the kitchen. He also plans to purchase a 20-quart tabletop stand mixer so that the school will be able to prepare dough onsite. Old warmers and mini ovens will also be replaced.
“It will be a little bit smaller, contained environment, but we’ll be able to do a lot more with better efficiency, timeliness and quality,” Clark said. “I can’t say how grateful I am that No Kid Hungry, is out there to help with these kinds of things. And truly, their campaign for Share Our Strength is really meaningful to me as a food service director. To be able to better serve our community and to get this kind of support from these other organizations, these national partners, it’s a huge benefit. And we’re just very, very pleased that we were selected for this grant.”