Valley Grove School District served more than 50,000 meals to the local community over about a two-month period after COVID-19 restrictions closed the schools.
“Overall we served 26,816 breakfasts and we did 26,960 lunches. That was over March 23 to May 31,” said Holly Smith, food service director with The Nutrition Group.
After schools closed in March, the district began setting up the to-go meal program, Superintendent Kevin Briggs said.
“Schools closed on the 13th; that next week, we had the application approved,” Briggs said.
Valley Grove Business Administrator Lori Hannon said, “Looking back, we weren’t prepared to do this.”
Briggs said the school’s cafeteria was only set up for a traditional dine-in service.
“Within a week’s time, Holly transformed that into a meal delivery only service,” Briggs said.
Breakfast and lunch meals were given out Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in bundles that would include meals for the days the school didn’t distribute, according to Smith.
“Anyone under 18 was eligible (for the meals) and if you were a student over 18 that was still enrolled, you were eligible, too,” Smith said. “They didn’t have to go to the school district, it could be anyone in the community, too,” Smith said.
Briggs said there were two locations for pickup, but the district also ran six vans for meal deliveries each day.
“It was quite the undertaking for the staff to organize those deliveries runs each day,” he said.
“Every day, we got phone calls for people signing up for meals deliveries,” she said.
The district needed plenty of helping hands to keep the meal operation running.
“We’re talking about over 50,000 meals, really with five cafeteria employees,” Briggs said. “We had every classification of employee here at the school helping out. We had teachers volunteering every day.
“Truly every department was super involved. There are usually few projects that have every employee at the school involved.”
Although the meal program has concluded, Venango County Human Services and Truancy Outreach Program are providing free weekday breakfasts and lunches that are distributed on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
“We ran (the meal program) through the end of May with the understanding that the county would run their program around the first of June,” Briggs said. “We ran it pretty much up until we knew they would have support from somewhere else in the community.”
