With classrooms closed by coronavirus, Tri-Cities schools are feeding kids on the fly

Tri-Cities schools may be closed for weeks by the coronavirus pandemic, but thousands of students are still getting fed.

Food service workers scrambled this week to assemble nutritious breakfast and lunch items that could be put in a paper bag and kept fresh.

Then school districts needed to find the best way to get them to students scattered throughout the community and into outlying areas. And the effort is growing.

On the first day, Kennewick school employees handed out 50 meals in the first 15 minutes at Amistad Elementary School, where nearly all of the 856 students are eligible to receive free or reduced price meals.

“I can’t say enough about the food service employees in our district. ... They’re here making sure that kids get a meal,” said Sam Shick, Kennewick’s director of nutrition services. “That’s outstanding to me.”

And while parents were slow to take up the offer, interest grew through the week.

Kennewick handed out 1,500 sack lunches the first day and then 2,400 the next.

And to reach more students, school officials decided to start delivering to two more locations — Highlands Middle School and Hawthorne Elementary School.

Pasco school officials put together 24 grab-and-go locations that delivered meals to about 2,500 students each day.

On Friday, they began delivering meals to the Clark Addition, Flamingo Village, Lakeview and Tierra Vida neighborhoods.

Superintendent Michelle Whitney shared on her Twitter feed a video of a school staff member standing on the side of the street near Delta High School waiving people in.

The superintendent said she was grateful to the dedicated team preparing the meals.

Richland school officials used a combination of buses and school sites to drop off 2,100 meals on Tuesday and then 2,600 meals a day by Thursday.

They have now added a new location at North 59th Avenue and Gray Street.

Hot lunch, cold breakfast

A Kennewick’s Ridge View Elementary, food service workers handed out a hot lunch and a cold breakfast to more than 40 students in the first half hour Tuesday.

Kids received a hot chicken sandwich, raisins, apple and milk, and for Wednesday’s breakfast there was a cereal bar, applesauce, string cheese and milk.

“There is clearly a need for it out there. It just makes you feel good that you’re able to help families out that may be can’t help themselves at this time,” he said.

It’s a departure from how they normally prepare. Shick said they normally have four choices at the elementary school and middle and the high schools generally have 12 to 16 choices.

The grab-and-go service is designed to be easy for families and staff, he said. The meals are designed to meet all of the requirements of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food service program.

The meals were also available to the children at the six YMCA daycare centers across the Tri-Cities. Employees from YMCA were helping to serve meals at the locations.

The school district normally serves 6,500 breakfasts and 10,000 lunches a day, so the sudden drop left a lot of food that hasn’t been eaten.

“We have plenty of food,” Shick said. “We have some food we’re probably not going to be able to use. We’re in communication with local food banks to be able to provide them with some food that they normally don’t get.”

Along with all of the other permanent employees, the nutrition services workers are receiving a paycheck.

The district started with a small number of locations since they were facing a challenge that they didn’t know how many employees they would have available.

Some of nutrition service’s employees are in their 60s, immune compromised or have other health issues, and they don’t want to expose them to more risk.

“We feel bad that we can’t be open everywhere, but we can’t put our employees in undue risk,” Shick said.

He said state and federal leaders are likely going to need to consider helping districts financially because schools are having to pay employees while collecting less money from the federal government because they are serving half as many meals.

This story was originally published March 20, 2020 at 12:52 PM.