Last week was National School Lunch Week, so we took a minute to get to know the brand new lunch girl on the town, Cat Vasquez. Vasquez is the kid diet director on the Grand County School District, and she or he began within the spring.
Vasquez labored in geriatric meals service and healthcare for 20 years, however was feeling burnt-out and was in search of a change. The change from serving the elderly to serving youngsters comes with new issues to be taught, reminiscent of a brand new organization system—however Vasquez’s earlier expertise primes her for a lot of the work in her new function, reminiscent of navigating authorities funding packages.
Vasquez stated she’s nonetheless enjoying “catch-up,” however she has made some notable adjustments since becoming a member of the district in July.
For instance, she’s making an attempt to chop down on waste by shopping for reusable trays with the Margaret L. Hopkin Middle School Thunderbird emblem as a substitute of styrofoam on the center college. She cleaned out the cafeteria pantries and is hoping to make extra meals by hand.
The aim is to have every little thing constituted of “scratch or speed scratch,” she stated, and use the very best quality of meals, with every little thing having the usual Child Nutrition Label on it—Child Nutrition labels are a part of a U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Nutrition Service program.
Sourcing the substances is one puzzle.
Some of the meals had already been bought previous to Vasquez’s begin: a recent grant purchased 1,500 kilos of recent, farm-raised floor beef from Colorado. Some meals is required to be sourced from the federal government: commodity objects like canned meals, hamburgers, turkey, and cheese.
All these substances all have so as to add as much as a different, rotating menu. Each scholar has three choices at every meal, together with a fruit, a vegetable, and an entree. Some entrees are the classics—sloppy joes, mashed potatoes and gravy, or pancakes. There’s a kind of routine too: Monday is a burger or scorching canine, Tuesday is Mexican, Wednesday is Italian or Chinese, Thursday is a few sort of hen dish, and pizza is served on Fridays.
While this system is in search of yet another employees member on the elementary college, Vasquez is grateful for the 2 managers on employees: Sarah Dawson works at Helen M. Knight Elementary School, and Sherri Costanza works on the center college and highschool. HMK serves about 430 college students every week; MLK and GCHS mixed serve about 200 college students every week.
Vasquez hopes that the youngsters report that the meals appears and tastes higher this 12 months, and that extra children begin consuming college lunches. That would enable her to safe extra funding to have the ability to be extra versatile with what she serves.
“It just takes time,” she stated of the adjustments she hopes to see.
A problem to that’s that many children are choosy eaters, and she or he says that begins at home and is troublesome to alter.
“It takes a village,” she stated, particularly in a small city.
While it’s loads to be taught and loads to handle, Vasquez has some huge goals for the lunch program. She’s partnering with native bakeries just like the Donut Shop and is in search of extra bakeries to serve home made items. She additionally hopes to have a free farmers market with recent produce that households can take home. Another huge concept is to buy a meals truck to be extra cellular in delivering the meals. Some packages provide dinner for households as nicely, and she or he is researching the right way to deliver a program like that in.
“I want Grand County to be able to continue feeding the kids,” she stated. “For some kids, this is their only meal, and that is sad. It needs to start here, because we are the biggest feeder of children.”
It’s a posh recipe to serve all the youngsters on the town, however Vasquez is certain of 1 factor, she stated—the key ingredient is “love.”
