BY SYDNEY HOOVER
On a cold Friday morning, food service employee Barbara Spring and bus driver Michele Cleveland sat on a school bus waiting to hand out school lunches.
Parents drove up next to the bus to grab meals from their cars for their children. On cold days, they see fewer families, but with nice weather moving in, they have been serving a significant number of students, Spring said.
For the remainder of the school year, children between ages 1 and 18 can receive free breakfasts and lunches Monday through Friday from the Eudora School District.
Since the program started March 24, the school district has served 3,100 meals.
“I cannot say enough how proud I am of our food service and transportation staff,” said Superintendent Steve Splichal at a recent School Board meeting. “They have done a remarkable job of trying to hit a moving target and meeting the demands as far as meals for the children in our community.”
Food Service Director Sharla Miller and other district staff organized pick-up locations throughout Eudora for children to get free meals. Children do not have to be students in the district. They just need to provide staff with their name and age to receive the meal.
Miller said the district anticipated one week of the free meals program, but quickly shifted to planning for two months when Gov. Laura Kelly announced K-12 schools would close for the rest of the year.
Miller and six other food service staff members prepare meals at Eudora Elementary, starting at 6:30 a.m. and working until around 1 p.m. Monday through Friday. Miller said because the elementary school’s kitchen is big, staff members are able to maintain a 6-foot distance from each other and also wear masks while preparing meals.
The food service staff is working on transferring all the frozen food purchased for the remainder of the school year to the elementary school to serve in the meals. The first few days, they handed out mostly cold meals, such as sandwiches, but now they have disposable boxes that can hold hot meals like pizza.
The staff takes the meals on buses to each distribution site. Miller said they chose outdoor locations, such as parking lots, to follow social distancing guidelines. Food services employees then pass out meals while bus drivers assist. If a bus runs out of meals, Transportation Director Machaela Beshears said she delivers more meals to them.
“We’re having a great response,” Beshears said. “After the second week, it’s going a lot smoother and it’s just been a great thing.”
As other nearby districts, such as Tonganoxie and Topeka, have shut down meal programs due to coronavirus concerns, Miller said they are doing everything they can to follow state and federal guidelines.
She said they are maintaining a 6-foot distance between families — green dots and caution cones can be seen at each location marking how far 6 feet is in the line to receive meals. Staff also sanitize work spaces before and after preparing meals, and buses are disinfected each afternoon after meals are served.
Beshears said the staff has received positive feedback from the community. She said each of her bus drivers received a gift card, and children have brought homemade thank you cards for the employees.
Above all, the meals have provided a sense of normalcy to students throughout the district, Miller said.
“The parents [were] like, ‘You know, the kids are so confused why they can’t go back to school,’ and then [the students] opened up that lunch and saw that school milk. They were just ecstatic,” Miller said. “So it’s just amazing.”
Meals can be picked up from 11:30 to 12:30 at the following locations:
Grandview Trailer Park
Main Street Bus Stop (by the public safety building)
Eudora Middle School
West Resource Center
Family of Faith Church
Eudora Baptist Church
Reach reporter Sydney Hoover at eudoratimes@gmail.com.
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