Food workers from Tacoma Public Schools loaded up their personal cars with pounds of perishable produce and delivered them Monday to a central location for donation to the Emergency Food Network.
Almost a week after Tacoma teachers went on strike and schools closed, the district decided to give away more than a dozen pallets of fresh produce including lettuce, kiwi and strawberries to the Pierce County nonprofit that serves more than 70 food banks and meal sites.
“I’m so glad this is going to the community instead of the garbage,” said Kaleen Dickens, a cashier at Larchmont Elementary, as she and Cathy Landgrebe from nearby Lister Elementary unloaded box after box from the back of Dickens’ pickup.
Dickens said she and her colleagues have been concerned about students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch finding a good meal while being out of school for more than a week. But if they couldn’t prepare the food for the children, she said, donating it is the next best thing.
Fresh produce is hard to come by at food banks, said the Emergency Food Network’s Jimmy Wells, who came to the district’s food service warehouse on Center Street and Union Avenue to pick up the goods. Big grocers are the network’s primary source of fruits and vegetables, but their donations aren’t as predictable.
Tacoma Schools’ donation “will go real fast,” Wells said.
About 18,000 children – more than half of students in the school district – qualify for free or reduced breakfast and lunch, a widely accepted measurement of poverty. Paul Scott, the district’s child nutrition services director, said Monday that the federal government reimburses the district, on average, about $50,500 a day to feed those students breakfast and lunch. But with no school meals served over the course of the strike, which is entering its sixth day, the federal money doesn’t flow into the district, Scott said.
“We don’t get money for meals unless we serve them,” he said.
Food deliveries to the schools have been stalled since last week, Scott said. He and his staff have been in a holding pattern, hoping classes would begin again so the food could be put to use.
By Monday it was clear something had to be done.
One of Scott’s colleagues, Kathy McKibbin-Manuel, had an idea. She said that she once was a client of the Emergency Food Network, and she knew it could handle this donation.
“We would overwhelm a small food bank,” she said Monday, while taking a break from counting cucumbers and bags of broccoli. “I knew the Emergency Food Network could clear it out fast.”
Although employees who loaded food Monday were on the payroll, many other non-teaching employees in the district did not work Monday, and they haven’t since the strike started.
By Monday afternoon, food service workers from across the district backed up their cars and dropped off boxes full of grapes, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, fresh spinach and more.
Apples, oranges and baby carrots will stay at the schools, Scott said, because they can last longer with a little refrigeration.
When the strike ends, he said food deliveries to Tacoma campuses can be ramped up again in a day.
“I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t just want to get back to the kids,” he said.
Kathleen Cooper: 253-597-8546
kathleen.cooper@thenewstribune.com
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