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#ThankYouThursday: Celebrating Food and Nutrition staff
The current global crisis hasn’t lessened Jen Daniels’ sense of purpose.
Sudden upheavals have transformed daily life for Daniels, the kitchen manager at Smoky Hill High School. Districtwide closures in response to the COVID crisis have meant that Daniels and the rest of the Food and Nutrition Services Department staff across Cherry Creek Schools no longer report to their normal buildings every day; it’s meant that they no longer interact with students; it’s meant that they no longer feed kids in face-to-face settings.
Even so, Daniels and her colleagues haven’t let these changes get in the way of what they see as their fundamental mission. Along with more than a dozen of her coworkers, Daniels has spent her work days at the CCSD Student Nutrition Center, where a dedicated group of 16 assemble nutritious meals that are handed out to district families at designated sites across the district’s 108 square miles.
“Our kids need to be fed,” Daniels said. “That’s what it’s all about, regardless of the current circumstances. It’s super important to me that our entire community is getting the food they need.”
Daniels added that the crew working daily to prepare the meals that are distributed at the district’s 11 “Free Breakfast and Lunch” sites are observing social distancing guidelines, and that they’re all looking for ways to deal with the profound changes that have impacted their daily work. The hardest part, she noted, was losing contact with the students, teachers, staff members and others who make every CCSD school building a tight-knit community.
“That’s the really difficult part of this. We’re still seeing other people, but we don’t to get to see our kids at school. We don’t get to see our teachers and staff. It’s a little crazy,” Daniels said. “You wonder how everybody is doing.”
Priscilla Bloom, a supervisor with the Food and Nutrition Services Department, has also had to make unexpected adjustments over the past three weeks. Bloom and the rest of the district’s supervisors normally oversee kitchens at about 12 schools each; that means regular visits to facilities and firsthand interactions with kitchen staff, students and teachers.
More recently, Bloom has spent her days on the front lines of food distribution in the district, working with a small team at Independence and Sunrise elementary schools to hand out meals and offer a note of encouragement and support to families.
Judging by the response at both sites, Bloom has seen a real need for these resources in the CCSD community.
“I lead a little team every day. We have three people on the team at each site. We meet at the Student Nutrition Center, we get everything in the truck and we head over to our first site,” Bloom said. “My two sites have been very, very busy. We regularly have cars in lines out past the school. It’s just about trying to get them through as quickly as possible.”
The teams at all 11 distribution sites are careful about observing social distancing guidelines, even as they do their best to offer a note of hope and compassion to the students and parents who they only get to see briefly through a car window. Operating under quarantine guidelines has made daily life difficult for those whose work is all about interacting with people.
Even so, Bloom has retained a sense of purpose and fulfillment throughout the crisis. She credits the entire Food and Nutrition Department for their bravery and their dedication, from Director Kim Kilgore, who’s helped coordinate the distribution sites, to Executive Chef Brandon Durio, who’s worked closely with the prep staff. Even before the current crisis, this team won recognition and praise from state regulators for their professionalism and quality.
Those qualities haven’t lessened in the current circumstances.
“It’s understandable to want to just stay at home, but our staff is taking a risk by doing this, because they know it’s such an important job. They work so hard normally, but I feel like they’ve stepped it up times ten,” Bloom said, adding that her team has been distributing about 2,000 meals a day. “Our mission has always been, ‘Feed the kids.’ It’s something that’s helped me personally get through this time.
“If I can hold on to that mission, it helps. That’s the attitude of everyone else in this building,” she added.
For a list of “Free Breakfast and Lunch” distribution sites and times, visit https://www.cherrycreekschools.org/freemeals.
Posted 4/2/20 at 2:45 PM