By Ed Pierce
 |
RSU 14 Director of School Nutrition Jeanne
Reilly, left, visits with Mobile Meals Van drivers
Ashley Genovese and Phil Herbert following
distribution of take-home student meals at
Manchester School in Windham on Tuesday
morning. The free breakfast and lunch meals
are intended to see that RSU 14 students do
not go hungry on virtual learning days.
PHOTO BY ED PIERCE
|
Thanks to a generous new program offered by the U.S.
Department of Agriculture and using a new Mobile Meals Van, RSU 14 is stepping
up to see that every student in the district does not go hungry.
With many families in Raymond and Windham struggling to make
ends meet during the COVID-19 pandemic, over the summer RSU 14 administrators pondered
how to best meet nutritional needs for children who were not able to be
physically attend school because of the virus. Without burdening the district’s
transportation department already at capacity because of newly imposed CDC
social distancing requirements, the RSU purchased a van to be operated for transporting
school meals to convenient pick-up locations for students to consume at home.
“We started utilizing our Mobile
Meals Van on the first day of school on Sept. 9,” said Jeanne Reilly, RSU 14
Director of School Nutrition. “With school operating on a hybrid schedule, and
children learning from home at least three days per week, we were very
concerned about meeting the nutritional needs of students on their virtual
learning days. We developed a plan to make meals more accessible to students
on those days. At the time, USDA, which funds our program, had extended
COVID-related waivers, allowing us to offer meals to all children at no cost
until the end of December.”
Since then, Reilly said that Congress issued additional funding and gave the USDA permission to extend the waivers until the end of the 2020-2021 school year meaning that for the remainder of the school year, all school meals will be available to all children in RSU 14 free of charge.
The Mobile Meals Van serves anywhere from 300 to 500 meals from the van each day, and on Fridays the program also
offers families the opportunity to pick up weekend meals, which Reilly said is
also
allowable because of COVID-19 related waivers.
“On the days that we are serving
weekend meals, we are serving over 1,500 meals,” Reilly said. “We are using the
van every school day. We begin our Mobile Meals route at 10:30 a.m. in
Windham and end at 12:35 p.m. in Raymond. We are considering extending our
time, as some of our stops are very busy.”
The RSU 14 meals consist of
breakfast and lunch and are delivered at five different locations including
Stadium Drive from 10:30 to 10:45 a.m.; Joyful Noise Daycare from 10:55 to
11:15 a.m.; the Manchester School Parking Lot from 11:20 to 11:35 a.m.; the
Raymond Elementary School Parking Lot from noon to 12:15 p.m.; and the
Creative Kids Daycare Parking Lot from 12:20 to 12:35 p.m.
“Mostly we are offering cold menu
items, such as sandwiches, salad, bento box style lunches that can be consumed
cold without re-heating,” Reilly said. “For students in middle and high
school, we do include some items that need to be reheated such as macaroni
& cheese, chili, and pizza. The younger children, however, are often
eating these meals in a daycare setting, where heating the meals up might be problematic.
Weekend meals tend to be bulk foods
and also includes food that may need to be assembled or re-heated at
home.”
Reilly said two people drive the
van’s route and serve the meals which are prepared by RSU 14 kitchen staff and packaged
to be eaten at home. Currently, all students through the age of 18 can eat
for free, even those children who are not yet in school and children who are
homeschooled.
“We do ask that meals be ordered
through our Nutrislice APP or through the Nutrislice Program,” Reilly
said. “This helps us to plan accordingly and helps us to ensure that we
have enough meals. Pre-ordering also helps us manage
over-production and waste.”
Meals can be ordered by downloading
the free Nutrislice App or by visiting www.rsu14.nutrislice.com
"A parent or guardian can create an
account and add each child to their account, using their school student ID, or
in lieu of a student ID they can use a phone number or birthday or other number,”
Reilly said. “Meals can be ordered up to 30 days in advance and need to be
ordered by 9 p.m. the night before the date of delivery.”
She said that the content of the meals
will change periodically or by the season.
“For the first six weeks, we only
varied our menu slightly, but moving into November and December, we have
planned a few changes and updates,” Reilly said.
Funding for the Mobile Meals is derived from a USDA program initiated
earlier this year to ensure that all students receive a nutritious meal, twice
a day, throughout the school week.
“As our
nation reopens and people return to work, it remains critical our children
continue to receive
safe, healthy and nutritious food,” said U.S. Secretary of
Agriculture Sonny Perdue who emphasized that students across America need to have
access to food as childhood hunger rates have increased as a result of the
pandemic. “We are grateful for the heroic efforts by our school food service
professionals who are consistently serving healthy meals to kids during these
trying times, and we know they need maximum flexibility right now.”
Christopher
Howell, RSU 14 superintendent, said the Mobil Meals Van is another example of
how the district has adapted to life during the COVID-19 crisis.
“The pandemic has
impacted the way that we run our schools in RSU 14. In addition to the
six brick and mortar schools in our district, we are currently running a
seventh virtual school for 440 students,” he said. “As instruction has
adapted to this model, so has the school nutrition program. Each and
every day our school nutrition staff serves delicious and healthy meals to all
of our in-person learners, hybrid home learners, and the remote students at
home.”
Howell said everyone
associated with RSU 14 can take pride in programs that serve students such as
the Mobile Meals Van.
“I am proud of all of
the work that our school nutrition staff have completed as they have overcome
the logistical challenges of feeding breakfast and lunch to in-person and
remote students,” Howell said. “The work that they do each day helps to
maintain the connection between our distance learners and their schools.”
Reilly said
that the best aspect of the program is the RSU has been able to feed children
healthy breakfast and lunches whether or not they are in school at no cost to
the families.
“The feedback
we have received has been overwhelming,” Reilly said. “Families are so
grateful.”
She said the
program also helps children in other ways during the pandemic.
“Even without the
need, a school meal gives students familiarity and has restored some normalcy
to their lives when they’re not in school,” Reilly said.
There are
challenges in operating a mobile school meals program and most of that centers
on managing waste either when families may order meals and then because of
circumstances not pick them up.
“That’s why we
have to make sure we are preparing the right amount of food for the program,”
Reilly said. “I also worry about getting meals to families who are without
transportation or have other issues. We’re going to keep doing this through the
end of June.” <
