LAS CRUCES – Elvira Moreno goes to Desert Hills Elementary School almost every day to eat her 3 grandchildren: the youngest is a year and a half old and the 11-year-old.
She said that with them at home all the time, it was hard to stick to the kitchen and clean, so this service is very convenient. Moreno lives just five minutes from the school’s catering site, which has served behind-the-wheel meals each and every day of the week during the summer.
Moreno has even made other concoctions with food items such as smoothies, milk cartons, cereals and fruit or taco cups, fish sticks and cauliflower so that his grandchildren eat all the food they receive.
“This saves me a lot of cash to buy food,” Moreno said in Spanish. “I appreciate it very much because I don’t know what I would do (without the service). That would be complicated for me.”
When the COVID-19 pandemic forced the sudden closure of school buildings in March, thousands of school-catering academics had to be housed.
In southern New Mexico, districts have been adapted to a breakfast and lunch service to continue offering essential foods for academics this time.
According to the New Mexico Department of Public Education, since the closure, they have continued to serve food, adding up to nine million foods since the state’s closure.
NMPED promised that academics will continue to obtain these facilities during the pandemic.
In New Mexico, 75% of academics were eligible for loose or discounted lunches in the 2017-2018 educational year, 12% more than last year, according to NMPED data.
Near Las Cruces, the surrounding districts experienced an increase in eligibility for these systems in 2017-18. In Las Cruces public schools, 75% of students were eligible; at Hatch Valley Public Schools, 99% were eligible; and in the gadsden Independent School District, one hundred percent of students were entitled to a loose or discounted lunch.
Eligibility for a reduced or loose lunch program with family income. For example, if a family of 4 earns less than $48,470 depending on the year, their children are entitled to a loose or reduced price meal.
With the pandemic causing financial hardship for many families, Edwanda Williams, director of nutrition at Las Cruces Public Schools, said food was more vital than ever.
“Because young children are at home, parents can’t really (meals),” Williams said. “One thing we deserve to take parents off the plate is to make sure their children get the nutrition (breakfast and lunch) every day. Arrangement… Children grow mentally and physically when they eat a nutritious meal.
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After public schools painted to organize them in March, months of paintings in this way allowed nutrition staff to adapt to the new system.
Many summer food paintings in the same way: driving allow families to stop at those sites without having to get out of their cars and make contacts. Staff members disinfect carts and trays after each circle of family members to make sure everything is disinfected before loading prepackaged food into them for families to take out windows.
With Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s order that public education be online until Labor Day, those driving strategies will continue for a month.
Since the beginning of summer, Las Cruces Public Schools have been providing food to all members of the network that are one of their collection locations, not just registered students. The district supplies about 6,000 food a day, according to Williams.
Desert Hills Elementary School Food Service staff wait under a tree with ice coolers and insulating bags filled with prefabricated foods that families pick up. Drivers raise their hands to tell staff how much food they want while handling the structure site.
Dahlia Vasquez runs the food service site at Desert Hills Elementary with 3 other nutrition staff members, however, in recent years they have gained more help from on-call staff. Together, they served about two hundred meals a day during the summer, much less than the 350 to 400 meals that served the school year after March.
Lynn Middle School recorded similar figures, distributing more than two hundred foods a day during the summer and 400 during the school year. Hernandez said other people would possibly not be aware of the service or simply wouldn’t be interested.
In Lynn, it’s not uncommon to see giant vans with families of 8 or more children. As he spoke, a car stopped to order 12 meals.
“A lot of young people have our food,” Hernandez said. “(We) feed families”.
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Williams said the fall service differs from the summer service because, once the school year begins, families will have to provide identity or evidence that their child is registered in the district. The LCPS is still thinking about the approach it will use for this enlistment, contemplating features such as a punched card.
The district will open another 30 food collection sites at the beginning of the school year at bus stops to allow for simple access to families.
With this opportunity, Williams expects more young people to enjoy the food provided throughout the district.
“I need to be successful in as many young people as possible,” Williams said. “Before (of the summer), we serve more. And then, when summer started, the numbers went down.
He said that when the closure began, between 7,000 and 10,000 foods a day were served, and he noted a significant drop in participation once the summer began.
LCPS Summer Meal Service will continue until August 4 and school year service will begin on August 12 when the categories begin.
North Valley Elementary School food service staff prepares food that is shipped to 4 more places around the Gadsden Independent School District for families to pick up. Principal Cecilia Cabrera said they prepare two hundred meals a day for local students.
Cabrera said those systems are for the health and protection of academics in the area.
Every day, Cabrera and his team arrive at elementary school at 6 a.m. to begin preparing the food they will serve from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. She says the substitution caused by the pandemic and closure was difficult to adapt at first, due to the amount of additional containers when preparing the meal. They also can’t make so many hot dishes because food will have to be okay.
When the cars entered the long road leading to elementary school, they shouted an order in Spanish, such as “Red Truck! Five!” Although they serve 50 foods a day at their location, they recognize many of their customers after offering food this way for about five months.
“When it’s hot, when it’s cold, when it rains … we’re here,” Cabrera said.
As the cars pass, many have a role that checks their children’s registration in the district and is ambitious with the amount of food they need to pick up, so workers can prepare the cart smoothly along the way.
Cabrera said he gained a lot of gratitude from parents and grandparents when they came here to pick up food for their children.
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One of the things Cabrera missed to the fullest when the school in consultation saw schoolchildren every day. On the first day, his team prepared food for students in this remote environment, he cried.
According to GISD spokesman Luis Villalobos, an average of 2,300 foods a day is served throughout the district.
The giSD summer meal service ended on July 23, but food collection will continue once the categories begin on August 3.
For Hatch Valley Public Schools, Hatch Valley High serves as a central food distribution site that sends food buses to locations in the remote district. Meals are distributed between 7:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.
Rex Lish, director of HVPS’ food department, said the district supplies between 500 and 700 foods a day during the summer, but expects to see an increase once the school year begins.
“To be honest, other people are tired of (the food) packed,” Lish said. “We try to make as many hot foods as possible, but it’s very difficult to bring 700 servings of pizza and keep them warm.”
Lish said it’s a big challenge to get other people to go to those places and eat.
“It’s very unhappy because we have a lot of families that we know they need. But it’s very, very complicated to involve other people,” Lish said. “We have a very high poverty rate … But school meals are rarely stigmatized.”
Summer meal service at HVPS will continue until August 12, until school year service begins on August 13.
To learn more about the district’s food in New Mexico, stop at https://www.newmexico.gov/education/meal-sites-for-children/.
Miranda Cyr, member of the Report for America Corps, can be contacted on [email protected] or @mirandabcyr on Twitter. Show your for the Report for America program on https://bit.ly/LCSNRFA