Cafeteria too often taken for granted

Walking into the Clovis Schools central office the other day, the first thing I saw was a table laden with enormous platters of cookies. Several ladies were organizing the plates, clearly getting ready to load for transport. Walking over to chat (no, not to get a cookie), I asked what was going on. I was told this was part of the 1,000 cookies the CMS school cafeterias bake and take to the Lighthouse Mission annually.

Surprised, I headed on in to find Paul Klein, director of student nutrition, who heads up the food services for all the schools in the district. “Oh, yes, we've baked 1,000 Christmas cookies for probably the last 20 years or so. Each of the 17 kitchens participate in the baking and delivering to the Lighthouse Mission for their special Christmas Day when they offer meals, clothes, and toys for the kids. They also give out cookies.”

Not only do our wonderful cafeteria workers bake 1,000 cookies, they prepare them beautifully. Klein continued, “Many of the cafeteria managers really go above and beyond in putting the cookies together, lavishly decorating the containers.” I could certainly testify to that having had a glimpse of the beautiful platters and trays of cookies as they were on their way out the door.

Klein went on to talk more about his department. “Our staff is always very caring. We have a great group with, actually, little turnover in staff. They really care about the kids and making sure they get fed.”

The rest of Klein's immediate team is administrative assistant Sharon Garcia and Doris Bolton, secretary and bookkeeper. While their primary functions are helping to facilitate the running of the department, they've been known in the past to head to a school to pitch in, in an emergency.

All too often we take for granted that when students show up to the cafeteria there's a hot meal waiting for them. The effort and actual work making this possible, however, is formidable. Listening to Klein describe what must be done to daily generate as many as 6,000 breakfasts and 7,000 lunches is remarkable; not to mention between one and two hundred after school snacks for special programs.

Ongoing challenges are ensuring full compliance with all the state and federal regulations as well as constant planning ahead to ensure healthy foods are provided.

Sounds to me like another Christmas miracle.

Cindy Kleyn-Kennedy is the instructional technology coordinator for the Clovis Municipal Schools and can be reached at: [email protected]