Not all heroes wear capes. Some wear aprons.
We celebrated our heroes last week as part of School Lunch Hero Day. Established in 2013 and acknowledged in a proclamation by DC Mayor Muriel Bowser in 2023, the day shines a light on these hard-working members of the DC Central Kitchen family during the first week of May.
“School Lunch Hero Day gives important recognition to the many individuals working to ensure that every child has access to nourishing meals at school,” says Travertine Garcia, DCCK’s Nutrition Programming and Compliance Manager. “It can be a thankless job, juggling high volume food production, student preferences, food allergies, classroom deliveries, equipment issues, and more. Despite these challenges, our team prepares delicious, nutritious, scratch-cooked meals every day, made with love and served with a smile.”
This year we visited the teams at four of our Healthy School Food sites: Burrville Elementary School, Lawrence E. Boone Elementary School, Lorraine H. Whitlock Elementary School, and Anacostia High School.
“I love to feed the kids healthy foods, see the smiles on their faces and get the great feedback we get from them,” says Lawrence E. Boone Elementary school food chef Davon Byrd.
Davon’s coworker, Cassandra Cosby, also shared her enthusiasm about her job. “I love coming to work every day, greeting my friends good morning, seeing their smiles, and helping them get through their day.”
We asked our colleagues about what the kids love about their food. We heard that the students love pizza (No surprise there). But they also love the other hot food options we serve, especially our morning options like buttermilk pancakes, scrambled eggs, brown sugar oatmeal, French toast sticks, turkey sausage links, veggie breakfast sausage patties, and tomato basil frittata.
“The food has gotten better from when I was a student. It’s fresher and served hot,” says Davon. “I would have come to school every day, on time, if this was the food I was being served.”
“I would say lunch is my favorite part about my day,” says Cassandra. “Just to see [the students] come in and excited about getting their meals makes us feel good. Our kids love the food.”
Lakisha Thomas from Anacostia High School said her students are offered meal options that were not available to her when she was in school. “The fusion bar is a gift to them, we never had that when I was a kid,” she says.
“[The students] come to us about more than food,” Burrville team member Ashley Owens says. “They feel like family. There’s a bond we’ve created with the students. It’s a really good, comfortable environment.”
According to Travertine, School Lunch Hero Day recognizes and celebrates the incredible impact of this work to not only to nourish students, but use food a tool to strengthen bodies, empower minds, and build community throughout the year.