Houston County schools provide thousands of meals to area children during coronavirus outbreak

While doctors, nurses, truckers, pharmacists and other essential personnel are working around the clock to make sure supplies, medicine and care are available, more than 50 Houston County Board of Education employees are doing their part by ensuring the children in Houston County are being fed.

Since the Meals for Kids started being dispersed on March 17, more than 125,000 meals have been given out to children, according to Meredith Potter, director of school nutrition for Houston County schools.

The food schedule changes today: the Houston County School District will provide meals on from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at Huntington Middle, Matt Arthur Elementary, Northside High and Tucker Elementary.

District vans will continue to deliver meals to select neighborhoods three days a week. On Monday and Wednesday, each child will receive two breakfasts and two lunches. On Friday, each child will receive three breakfasts and three lunches.

Meals are available for any child up to 18 years of age. Children do not need to be enrolled in the Houston County School District to receive meals.

Planning in place

With the news about the COVID-19 virus developing rapidly, Potter said her department had been paying attention to the news and following the trends prior to school being canceled, so they began the planning process that last week of school as they saw “saw the effects of pandemic becoming very real.”

As a result of planning ahead, she said when they left work on March 13, they had the framework of a plan in place that would enable them to feed students. On March 15, when she received a call about an hour before the school cancellation phone call went out at 8 p.m., she was able to talk with Dr. Scott’s cabinet members about ensuring that they would be able to fill the needs of the kids in the county and make sure they were supported in that effort. As a result of all the planning, when the call went out to parents about the school cancellations, the message also informed parents that meals would be offered to students starting on March 17.

Despite all the prior planning, Potter said it took that Monday to figure out the logistics and “put legs to the plan.”

Since the schools were expected to be in session that day, the food delivery trucks were scheduled to bring the food to each of the 37 schools in the county in order to feed the 30,000 school kids in the county, explained Potter. As a result of school being canceled, other departments such as the warehouse department, had to send trucks to gather all the food from the schools and bring it to the four feeding sites.

The first day, 11,000 meals were served at the four sites as well as the existing summer feeding routes, which consists of seven routes in low-income neighborhoods, according to Potter. By the end of the first week, however, that number had grown to more than 20,000 meals on Friday. The most, to date, that have been served in one day is 22,000.

“The demand grew as families learned about the benefits of the program,” she saud.

The meals, which are served basically as curbside pickup in the car rider or bus lanes includes two breakfasts and two lunches for each child in the car. Although the students do not have to be enrolled in Houston County schools, they do have to be present to get the meals, Potter said. Even on the routes, which have approximately 10 stops each, the children have to be present to get the meals.

“In times of emergency, the USDA realizes the focus should be on providing resources to those who need it,” Potter said. “During the typical school year, there would be much more focus on monitoring, but due to the gravity of this situation of the speed of which the school system had to make decisions, the focus is on filling immediate needs.”

Health and safety

While feeding the kids is a priority, so is safety and sanitation, according to Potter, who added that approximately 99% of the schools have had perfect health scores. She said they are taking safety and sanitation extremely seriously and incorporating social distancing in their daily routines. For example, they have people working in small groups rather than large groups, have an abundance of gloves and are working with employees to ensure they are keeping a safe distance from the cars when giving out meals. She said that handwashing is the most important thing employees can do, so they have 30 minute timers in the kitchens to remind employees to take a break, wash hands and change gloves.

While hot meals are a norm for a typical school day, Potter said that some things are much easier to serve in a cafeteria environment rather than a pickup or delivery environment. While in the cafeteria kids may get pizza or spaghetti, she said it’s not as efficient to produce in a pick-up method. Consequently, the hot meals they are getting are easy to wrap and easy to eat items such as hamburgers and chicken sandwiches. As a result, future food orders the county will make during the school cancellations will be geared toward those types of foods.

“This is a very fluid situation we are in and learn new details every day. Processes change every day due to the situation; it is our every hope and desire to continue to provide food for the kids in Houston county,” she stressed

Tessany Lockhart, a nutrition manager at David Perdue Elementary who has been with the system for 15 years, is temporarily working at Matt Arthur Elementary to help get the meals out. For her, it is basically business as usual

“Right now…it’s normal in an unnormal situation,” she said. “We’re doing something we do everyday. We love it, and enjoy it and try to make that show as we serve these students.”

A lot of kids, according to Lockhart, are bringing homemade cards for the workers and a lot of parents have come through the lines with tears in their eyes, expressing how grateful they are for all their hard work.

The effects of the pandemic are far-reaching in a variety of ways, especially for young children having their routines disrupted. Lockhart said that last week, one of the parents drove up to the gate just as it was being locked, and the workers were cheering for her to be allowed in. When the parent drove to the pickup point, she explained that her child had had a “meltdown” because she hadn’t seen her favorite lunch lady. That parent was able to thank the lunch lady who typically feeds her child.

“You don’t realize how these children are affected… coming to school and seeing familiar faces affects them,” she said.

Not only do students miss school employees, but employees are missing the children. VaRee Harrell, principal at Matt Arthur Elementary, said she is really missing seeing the children at her school. Last week, she was able to help at Matt Arthur Elementary with the food preparations and pick-ups.

While Harrell doesn’t typically work in a lunchroom, she said it’s been an eye-opening experience for her working with the staff to prepare the meals. She learned that the staff counts grains and proteins to ensure the students have certain balanced meals and knows the employees feel good that the kids are being taken care of with the meals

“They (employees) have been so excited and talking about ‘this is what’s it’s all about - taking care of the customer,’” she stressed. “It’s customer service… and a sense of satisfaction knowing they can take care of the kids… to know we are feeding them and know they have a balanced meal. It makes them feel comforted knowing the kids are being taken care of.”