The COVID-19 pandemic has brought all normal life to a standstill over the last several weeks, and schools have been hit especially hard.
Schools were forced to shut down, teachers have had to scramble to put together online lessons and parents have to quickly figure out what to do about childcare.
But one of the places that hasn’t been shut down is the school cafeteria. Thanks to our sisters and brothers from AFSCME Local 257, schools throughout the Oakland Unified School District have been able to keep providing healthy meals to students and their families and they’ve been able to turn their schools into community feeding programs during the crisis.
“The work that we’re doing is needed because our babies depend on this food,” said Katheryine Posey, a Local 257 member is who the cafeteria manager at United for Success Academy. “Even though the food is not much, every little bit that we give helps them.”
During a typical week, the food service members usually cook and serve about 6,000 meals a day collectively to students at 12 schools throughout the school district.
But when the health crisis started, Oakland Unified made a critical decision to change its regular food service program into a “grab-and-go”-style free meal program, and the schools have now served nearly 600,000 meals to the community.
All told, at the 12 sites where the free meal program is offering the service on Monday and Thursday mornings, our members are now serving about 14,000 students and their families per day. The demand has gotten so big that the school district has brought in hundreds of other school and central office staff and volunteers to help distribute the meals.
To keep up with the demand and the increased health and safety concerns, our members have had to work together like never before. Our members and volunteers have been working long hours preparing meals, organizing food items, bagging all of it together, and giving everything out to families who arrive on foot or drive up to some schools at curbside.
They have to do all these activities while practicing proper social distancing.
Understanding that we’re in the middle of a crisis, Posey said she checks in with the team at her school’s cafeteria every morning, then asks everyone how they’re feeling and tries to address any concerns before they start preparing the food. They do a similar check-in at the end of the day to make sure everyone is still in good spirits, knowing that the workers are being asked to go above and beyond their normal duties these days.
“We understand it’s a critical time for everyone,” Posey said. “But we get out of bed each day and come here to do our jobs because our babies need us.”
For Local 257 members like Deidra Tillis, a cafeteria manager at Coliseum College Preparatory Academy, serving meals to families in the community is more than just a job. She is from the neighborhood where she works, and many of the families know her personally.
On a recent afternoon, Tillis was nearing the end of her shift when three families, comprising 14 people, showed up outside the cafeteria. The school was done giving out meals, but one of the students pleaded with her to see if they had any more food left.
“In my head, I was thinking. ‘I’ve been here since 6:30am, but you know what—why not?’” Tillis said. “We ended up making 14 more meals for them because it’s all about feeding our community.”
It’s that kind of selflessness that is giving schools and communities a glimmer of hope in the middle of a challenging situation.
“I’m very thankful to this school community for making sure that what needs to happen gets done,” said Amy Carozza, the principal at Coliseum College Preparatory Academy. “There are people assigned here and people who are here out of the goodness of their hearts working just to make sure the food gets out to the community. That’s the point.”
