State seeks to ease school lunch debt, but policies still vary widely
State seeks to ease school lunch debt, but policies still vary widely
Joe Strupp, Asbury Park Press
Breakfast for K-8 students in Savannah-Chatham County schools on Aug. 12 read as follows: breakfast bread, cereal and grahams, fruit juice and a half cup of fruit choice.
And lunch didn’t fare much better: hot dog, grits, egg and biscuits, tater tots, sweet potatoes, apples, and juice.
For parents such as Shakiera Lopez, ensuring her children have a nutritious meal is even more of a challenge considering she’s now having to come out of pocket for breakfast and lunch because her children simply won’t eat what’s offered.
This story is the fourth in a four-part series on food insecurity and food desert issues in Savannah and Chatham County. Read the other pieces here:
What does local data tell us about food deserts in Chatham?
What does food insecurity look like in Savannah?
Volunteers, residents share struggles with getting to grocery
“I really didn’t know the magnitude of how bad things were until we did virtual learning,” said Lopez, whose younger children attend Largo-Tibet Elementary School and receive free and reduced lunch. Lopez described some of the food as bag of Cheez-Itz, a hamburger that was cold in the center, and what she thought were tater tots.
“I bit into it because I love tater tots and I just automatically spit it out.”
Lopez’s children are among the 68% of SCCPSS students on free and reduced lunch whose parents rely on the school district to provide not just a meal but potential healthy options outside of what they can offer at home.
In interviews and messages to the Savannah Morning News, parents said they have had to dip into monthly finances to make up for the lack of nutritious meals their children complained about.
Providing a healthy school lunch has been a challenge with SCCPSS facing supply chain issues and a shortage of cafeteria workers.
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During the August school board meeting, the school district approved a $710,000 grant to assist with supply chain issues. The grant will be used to buy non-processed or minimally-processed domestic foods for the district’s breakfast, lunch and after-school meal programs.
In July, the school board awarded Douglas-based food Williams Institutional Foods, Inc with a one-year $9.4 million contract to provide food for the district. However, like other distributors, it too, has faced supply chain issues.
Dorothy Dupree, president of the SCCPSS health and wellness committee, said the school district often works with vendors who procure items for them from manufacturers.
“There’s kind of like two levels that have to be working seamlessly, and when the manufacturers are short on product, and aren’t able to get it to the vendor, then our vendor can’t get it to us,” she said, adding that continues to be a challenge with many items.
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“A lot of times, it’s just kind of unpredictable. We don’t always know until a week or two before if we’re going to get the full amounts we anticipated. And it’s not always the fault of our vendor, either because they’re having to work with the manufacturers.”
In some ways, the school district’s hands are tied: the United States Department of Agriculture regulates what meals schools can provide for breakfast and lunch. During the early years of the pandemic, the USDA issued waivers to schools, enabling them to provide breakfast and lunch for free but opted not to renew that waiver this school year.
Breakfast will still be free, but with the waiver expiring, SCCPSS parents who hadn’t paid for lunch in a couple of years will now have to come out of pocket and potentially run the risk of paying for a meal their child won’t eat.
‘He won’t eat his lunch’
Christina Castro has been packing her child’s lunch since he was in the first grade after he came home from school and told her he didn’t like the school lunch.
“That was a problem because they’re in school for so long. Nutrition is definitely important,” Castro, whose son began his first year of kindergarten at the start of the pandemic and was already accustomed to what she served him for breakfast and lunch.
“I started making his lunch, because if I don’t, he won’t eat his lunch at school.”
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School meals are only part of the concern for parents, as many also struggle with finding healthy options and have had to stretch their budget to include breakfast and lunch when their children won’t eat what’s being offered at school.
School meals play a crucial role in tackling food insecurity and nutrition. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, eating a healthy breakfast can improve a child’s cognitive functions and improve their moods.
Amanda Brandmire moved to Savannah from Alaska in July after falling in love with the city during a visit. In Alaska, her children attended a Title I school and received free breakfast and lunch. But since moving to Savannah, her family has felt the effects of inflation.
Unlike Lopez, Brandmire said her family of four did not qualify for financial assistance and was denied free and reduced lunch and she’s having to come out of pocket for meals.
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“It has been a little bit of a challenge, balancing buying everything that he would need,” she said. “…By the time you get just his school lunch items and the grocery cart, you’re already at $50 or $60.” That doesn’t even include family meals.
For these families, it comes down to budgeting: “Most days, I’m having to rob Peter to pay Paul,” Lopez said, adding she sometimes has to forgo a car payment to ensure her children simply eat.
In other cases, she buys in bulk and relies on a surrogate grandmother to feed her younger children.
Brandmire echoed those same challenges: “I’m not working as many hours as I was, so my income is less. And then everything I buy, food, gas, utilities, everything has gone up for us. So, making lunch is definitely been stressful… It would be easier for me as a parent to have can just go to school and eat lunch, but it’s not going to work for him.”
‘Lunchroom ladies are gone’
An overarching complaint from the parents the Savannah Morning News spoke with was the sugariness of breakfast and the receptiveness of school lunch: “It’s only the second week of school and I think they’ve had pizza four times already,” Brandmire said. It’s also a complaint shared by her kid, who was used to a more diverse palate in the Anchorage School District.
Dupree echoed similar concerns about the school district’s ability to provide healthy foods to children. The committee’s role is to ensure the school district meets the bare minimum when it comes to USDA federal regulations.
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In June, the district completed its first triennial assessment which assesses how the school district is following its wellness policy. The assessment revealed the school district still had some ways to go in ensuring students had access to fresh foods; of the 14 assessment areas, 11 of them were labeled as “partially completed.”
Mahogany Bowers, founder of Blessings in a Bookbag, said a huge issue she’s found is that the traditional lunch lady is no more: “We all come from a time where these lunchroom ladies were lunch room lady at this one school forever, until they retired out. And so they knew you, they knew the kids, they knew the kids’ kids. Now, they’re their own private entity. So, they’re a private contractor within the school. They don’t work for the school.”
Blessings in a Bookbag delivers meals to students and residents in West Savannah neighborhoods, specifically the Otis Brock Elementary community, to ensure they’re getting the proper nutrients.
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A Savannah native, Bowers said she has grown accustomed to the west part of the city being considered a food desert and noted that the area largely doesn’t have grocers and lacks access to fresh foods and regularly priced goods.
“Yes, we have these little mom-and-pop bodegas, for lack of better words, but we do not have a grocery store,” she said. “…Inflation right now is just at an all-time high, no matter what business you’re in.”
Bowers said she tries to ensure that residents are getting protein and are able to make meals in the event they do not have a stove. Bowers said her organization easily services 125 homes – and likely more – during any given week. She’s also seen more people ask for her services and, in some cases, she provides financial assistance to those who are having to make ends meet.
“Sometimes, it’s something as small as, ‘Hey we just need $20 to put gas in the car,’ ” she said. “Sometimes, it’s as large as, ‘We’re about to get evicted and we need to be able to pay our rent.’”
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Backpack Buddies with the help of Loaves and Fishes ministry in Pooler provides meals on the weekends to families in need, dropping meals off at select SCCPSS schools on Fridays for children to have something to get by on until Monday. While the operation is largely based in Pooler, they’ve serviced parts of west Chatham County. Students typically get cereal and milk for breakfast, a SpaghettiOs or another canned meal for lunch and a protein such as ravioli as a dinner option.
Backpack Buddies director Joy Turner said the organization approached the board about expanding into other schools last week and intends to start those efforts at Pooler Elementary.
But outside programs can only do so much. Turner noted that schools haven’t been receptive to her willingness to feed children.
“It’s hard to get nutritious food to kids because they tend to lean on cheaper options,” she said, adding parents sometimes complained about the options provided and often asked for more healthier options.
Dupree said a menu advisory committee is forthcoming and will be a way for parents to share their experiences and give feedback. “We just need to make sure everyone at the table is hearing those concerns so that we can hopefully adjust,” she said.
Raisa is a Watchdog and Investigative Reporter for The Savannah Morning News. Contact her at [email protected].
