The school lunch program feeds nearly 30 million U.S. children. Now, school districts across the country have stopped or scaled back meal distribution as food service workers test positive for COVID-19.
Ann Cooper, director of food services for the Boulder Valley School District in Colorado, tells NPR her workers' safety was her greatest concern."My fear is that people can get sick and then we won't be able to service the community."
She says she's divided her workers up into three teams with no crossover, limiting who is exposed to whom. Workers' temperatures are taken as they come into the kitchen, and they also are asked to take their own temperature twice a day and report it in a Google Doc. Food safety, packing and distribution rules are as stringent as possible, and the staff does a video chat with a nurse every morning.
As the crisis drags on, Cooper says she's worried about her people's mental health."What kind of emotional toll is that going to take on people? And what happens when the first people get sick and other people have to step in?" School lunch staff are now, essentially, first responders, she says."And that's just not something that most people signed up for when you become a lunch lady."
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