{"id":2417,"date":"2020-04-24T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-24T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/?p=2417"},"modified":"2020-07-10T12:27:37","modified_gmt":"2020-07-10T16:27:37","slug":"special-delivery-benzie-frankfort-covid19-school-food-delivery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/betsiecurrent.com\/index.php\/special-delivery-benzie-frankfort-covid19-school-food-delivery\/","title":{"rendered":"Special Delivery"},"content":{"rendered":"

Benzie and Frankfort schools continue meal services through June, despite COVID-19 closure<\/em><\/p>\n

By Aubrey Ann Parker
\nCurrent Editor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fluorescent lights reflect off of stainless steel surfaces. A half-dozen sleepy-eyed adults mill about, waiting for the caffeine to kick in. They chat, keeping their distance from each other while also avoiding several cardboard-box towers that are filled to the brim with paper grocery bags located atop two-wheeled dollies near the doorway.<\/p>\n

Every few minutes, someone leans to look out the nearest window; nothing but chunky snowflakes and anticipation. Until a sky-blue semi-truck with the face of a black-and-white dairy cow pulls slowly into the driveway.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re on\u2014milk delivery\u2019s here,\u201d a voice calls.<\/p>\n

The languid moment is over. There is a flurry of movement, as people go to and fro, buzzing around like honeybees on a mission. One holds the door open as another pushes a cardboard-box tower outside to a bright yellow school bus that is idling noisily.<\/p>\n

Outside Support
\n<\/strong>School-provided meals are not the only thing riding on the buses.
\nIn Frankfort, for instance, a group of mothers (mostly members of Panther Parents) had been buying and preparing snack bags to serve as additional sustenance\u2014and a bit of fun: Caroline Yaste, Erika Elliott, Gail Crompton, Jaime Smith, Kari [White] King, Kari MacDonald, Krista VanTol, and Tammy Garrett were involved.For the first few weeks that school was shut down, before the governor\u2019s \u201cStay Home, Stay Safe\u201d executive order, the mothers took turns. Most would head to Costco to bulk-buy goodies, then their children would help them to divvy up the snacks into individual paper bags, and the bags were taken to the junior high\/high school building to be loaded onto buses alongside school-provided food.Since the \u201cStay Home\u201d on order began on March 24, however, the model has changed quite a bit: now, Kari King has arranged for the money that was collected for \u201cPopcorn Fridays\u201d at the elementary school to be donated to the school kitchen, which is able to buy extra snacks to go home with the meals.<\/p>\n

Benzie has had a lot of outside support, as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cMcDonald\u2019s has been fabulous,\u201d Purchase says. \u201cThey brought over coloring books, crayons, toys that they had, just things that they had going on. We have 9,000 GoGo Squeezes coming in today. Wesco has donated donuts and stuff. It\u2019s been absolutely wonderful; so great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally, the Roadhouse Mexican Bar & Grill of Benzonia donated lunch one day for the workers who were prepping and bagging meals at Benzie; then they donated lunch another day for the bus drivers and delivery crew.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have people call on a regular basis asking, \u2018Hey, what can I do? What do you need help with? Where can I help you?\u2019\u201d Purchase says. \u201cWe have had vendors bring free stuff to put on the buses with the kids. It\u2019s been great.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Other than the driver, the bus is empty\u2014as are the school\u2019s hallways, classrooms, and lockers, ajar for cleaning. Only the kitchen is bustling with activity.<\/p>\n

Despite it being 9 a.m. on a weekday, the school is eerily empty. Any vestiges of children are long gone: the artwork has come down from the walls, there is not a crumpled gum wrapper or a speck of trash anywhere to be seen, desks are stacked at the end of a hallway.<\/p>\n

By order of the governor, Friday, March 13, 2020, was the last day that K-12 students were permitted to attend Michigan schools due to the COVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

In Benzie County, there are roughly 17,500 year-round residents, according to estimates from the U.S. Census<\/a>. About 18 percent are children under the age of 19.<\/p>\n

There are two public schools serving this population: roughly 1,500 students at Benzie County Central Schools and 500 at Frankfort-Elberta Area Schools. More than 50 percent are considered \u201ceconomically disadvantaged,\u201d meaning that, when school is in-session, they receive two free or reduced-price meals per day.<\/p>\n

When Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) first made her announcement, the immediate thought running through many people\u2019s minds was: What will happen to these children?<\/em><\/p>\n

Even if the schools continued to provide two meals per day on location, Benzie County is a very rural area, and worries included that the children who were most at risk of going hungry would come from families who might not have a way to pick the meals up. Furthermore, with economic strains affecting more than just the \u201cmost-at-risk\u201d households, there may be additional families who typically do not qualify for free\/reduced meals which might now be in need\u2014and now they might not have gas money to receive proper nutrition for their children.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, government and school leaders quickly jumped into action.<\/p>\n

During the school closure, both schools are continuing to serve meals to students. Bus drivers are continuing to drive their normal routes twice a week.<\/p>\n

Instead of picking up students, they are dropping off food.<\/p>\n

The Women Behind The Meals
\nJenna Noffsinger, Food Service Director, Frankfort-Elberta Area Schools<\/strong>
\nJenna Noffsinger is the food service director for Frankfort-Elberta Area Schools, where she has worked for the past eight years.<\/p>\n

A 2006 graduate of Frankfort High School, Noffsinger returned to Frankfort in 2012 to put her degree in food science from Michigan State University to use\u2014she started off as a part-time worker in the school kitchens, before taking the full-time director job for the 2015-16 school year. (See our Q&A with Noffsinger from June 2016 here, including information on her use of local produce whenever possible.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

Noffsinger has seen all kinds of changes during her tenure\u2014budget cuts; rising food costs; halving of the kitchen staff; implementation of a 10-cent \u201cmatching funds\u201d program for schools to buy local foods, only to have it taken away by the state earlier this year\u2014but the ramifications of the COVID-19 school closure have presented new challenges.<\/p>\n

There are roughly 225 students at Frankfort Elementary School, and around 250 at the junior high\/high school building. Noffsinger\u2019s team of three staffers\u2014full-timers Sharon Ward and Jenny Townsend, part-timer Laura Franklin\u2014typically serve about 100 breakfasts and 220 lunches at the elementary and about 100 breakfasts and 150 lunches at the junior high\/high school. Meals are prepared at the JH\/HS building, where there is sufficient kitchen space and equipment, and about half are then shuttled in a pick-up truck to the elementary by Frank Ikens, FEAS maintenance director.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have developed our own routine that works for us,\u201d Noffsinger says of typical daily operations. \u201cWe truly are a team, and we have to help each other every day to get different things ready for lunch. So we do the best we can, and we are very busy and work very hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, FEAS is producing two meals per day for around 100 students twice per week: that equates to 600 meals going out the door on Tuesdays and 800 on Fridays. The whole process from start to finish has about 20 people involved at FEAS.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had three teachers help\u2026 they came in and helped us just stuff bags,\u201d Noffsinger says. \u201cWe have three bus drivers and an elementary aide riding each bus, helping deliver the meals\u2026 Our superintendent has been delivering meals, and our transportation director has been delivering meals, and our principal, and Carrie [Aldrich], that\u2019s been in charge of the lists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lisa Purchase, Food Service Director, Benzie County Central Schools<\/strong>
\nLisa Purchase has been the food service director for Benzie County Central Schools for the past six years, since they privatized, and she worked in the school kitchen prior to that, as well.<\/p>\n

Not only has Purchase been involved in the BCCS community as a staffer, but also as a parent: she watched her six adult children go through the school system.<\/p>\n

In all, there are about 600 students at three elementary schools\u2014Betsie Valley, Crystal Lake, and Lake Ann\u2014and about 700 at the Middle School\/High School building. Purchase\u2019s team of five full-time and seven part-time staffers typically processes about 100 to 150 hot lunches per day at each elementary school and about 400 to 500 at the MS\/HS building.<\/p>\n

But now, BCCS is making two meals per day for about 900 children twice per week: 5,400 meals are going out on Mondays and 7,200 on Thursdays.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince this started, my staff has been absolutely fabulous,\u201d Purchase says. \u201cFor the most part, I\u2019ve had them all here [at the HS\/MS building]. They\u2019ve all been here, putting in these huge hours, long days, making sure that these kids are fed.\u201d<\/p>\n