School program delivers more than one million meals

Bus drivers and school pizza bring a slice of normal life and needed food aid to many

A big yellow school bus lumbers down the narrow lanes, out the backroads, across the hillsides and down into the hollers. The two women on board deliver meals to students of the Muhlenberg County School District, as part of a plan to feed kids as the pandemic continues to keep many students at home.

When schools shut their doors to in-person learning in March of 2020, food service director Jo Cooper said she needed to find a way to get meals to the students. Her mission in the district needed rethinking, to encompass the closures that are now coming up on one year.

“Back when we first closed down in March, I was so worried about the kids,” Cooper said. She went to the board of education and asked if she could provide meals for the five days each week when students would normally eat at school.

Since March of 2020, the district has delivered more than one million meals, a feat of logistics bringing together the food service and transportation staffs, as well as teachers, principals, and anyone else willing to lend a hand.

At the start of the COVID-19 closures, Cooper decided to open up her usual summer feeding program early. For years the district has set up at various locations around the county to give out sack lunches during summer break. That seemed like an obvious starting point for Cooper, but the pick-up sites had to be reconsidered. The transportation staff was brought on board to deliver meals directly to the doors of about 1,800 homes around the county each week.

Spring turned to summer, then summer to fall. With the pandemic showing no signs of stopping, the program now continues into the winter months.

Food service staff at each school begin by prepping the meals, and bagging them up for delivery. This is a process that keeps staff working, even through periods when schools are closed for in-person learning.

A staff of seven prepares the meals at Muhlenberg South Elementary School, and when they’re ready to be loaded onto the busses, there will be nearly 2,500 meals going out the door.

Bus driver Terese Morris hands off a sack to Nevea Geary.

Each sack contains enough food for five breakfasts and five lunches – muffins, milk, sandwiches, pizza, macaroni and cheese, all portioned out and ready to heat and eat.

The program is funded through the federal government, and is an extension of the summer feeding program. Cooper said this allows them to feed a wider age range, instead of just school-age children. All children in the county from age two to 19 are eligible, no matter what the family’s income. If a child has special needs, they are eligible up to age 21.

The meals are delivered by teams of two bus drivers, who know the households better than many in the district. They quickly call and make sure this mom knows there’s a bag on her front porch, or text to check in on another. The routes are made each Wednesday, and all of the county’s schools are involved.

“This helps us out because there’s so much we can’t do as bus drivers,” said Terese Morris, who makes the rounds in Drakesboro, delivering the sacks of food, with driver Kelly Cavitt behind the wheel. With school being closed at times, drivers are often without work. The feeding program helps them keep some regular hours.

“If it wasn’t for the bus garage, this program wouldn’t work,” Cooper said. Principals, teachers, aides and office staff all help out to get the sacks ready and loaded up on busses each week. “It takes a village,” Cooper said.

As the bus pulls up to a stop along the Drakesboro route, three children wait at the side of the road for their delivery. One small boy, maybe 10 years old, smiles and pumps his fist in the air when he sees Morris.

Cooper said another family told her how excited their child was to receive a serving of school pizza for lunch. School pizza reminded them of being in school, “It’s just something normal,” she said. With the separation created by COVID-19 closures, many kids are just really excited to see their bus drivers as well, she added.

Many of the families who receive the meals live near poverty level, with the district hovering around 68 percent of students qualifying for free and reduced lunches. Some yards seem neglected, some homes look like they could use repair, people living in campers parked in yards – stark reminders of how fragile the safety net is for many in the county.

The three women on the bus reminisce about days when Drakesboro was a more stable community, with good paying jobs at TVA and in the coal mines. Now, many in the county struggle to keep food on the table.

The school bus drivers gain a closer look into the lives of the district’s children, they see them at their homes each day. “When you’re a school bus driver, you tend to the kids,” Morris said.