Sharing With Those In Need

We are happy to share this guest post from Rachel Stein, a math and literacy interventionist at Charlotte Central School. She is leading a tremendous effort to donate leftover food to those in need. Thank you, Rachel, and CCS!

A note from Scott Wagner, one of CVSD's food service directors: 

The regulations around the free school meals being served this year require that each child receives a complete meal that includes a variety of components including fruits, grains, vegetables, protein, and milk. Students are encouraged to consume the healthy choices prepared for them, or bring them home to eat later, but some students may not choose to do so. Due to safety and sanitation concerns, our kitchens are not allowed to reclaim or reuse even unopened, packaged items.

 

As an interventionist, I am in and out of classrooms all day long. I began to notice the non-perishable foods, like fruit cups and cereal that teachers save from their student leftovers, were overflowing. I was not the only one taking notice of our problem. Teachers were sharing with me and each other how sad it was to have so much excess food and nowhere for it to go. I wondered about milk and found out that many were being thrown away everyday because the cafeteria can't take them back and teacher's didn't have the resources for collecting and refrigerating. So, I decided to help. I had worked with the local food shelf in the past, so I knew Karen Doris (the amazing human being who runs the Charlotte Food Shelf). I knew that if she couldn't use it, she could put me in touch with someone who could.

 
Our entire staff has come together to make this happen. It would not be happening without the cooperative efforts of the students, teachers and our amazing custodial team. After sending an email out to the whole staff telling them of my goal of collecting our food, I received a very positive response. Everyone was willing to pitch in and help. Students and teachers started to collect leftovers in milk crates after lunch and place them in the hallways. Chris LeBlanc, the linchpin for this operation, has his custodial team do a sweep each day, collect the food and put it in the refrigerator. This has worked really well. We've collected an enormous amount of food which I have been delivering on a regular basis. 

In the past two weeks (this is still very new), we have collected over 300 fruit cups, 121 milks, 30 single salsa cups, 25 bananas, 8 oranges, 15 bags of carrots, 15 Gogurts, 6 cheese sticks, 2 soy milks, and a few apples. It makes me wonder... If we have this much food, how much do other schools have and what are they doing? Could we help?

The Charlotte Food Shelf is the first place we take food. However, at today's delivery it became clear that we had too much for them to handle. We will now be delivering to both the Charlotte Food Shelf (bi-weekly) and Feeding Chittenden, an emergency food shelf in Burlington that serves over 125 families. Both organizations are grateful for CCS's donations.

I wish we didn't have so much excess, but am so glad the food is going to people who can really use it. Together we can make a big difference.