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Company’s employees helped keep schoolkids fed during pandemic

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Metz Culinary Management thanked all of its on-site foodservice employees for the efforts in feeding area children during the COVID-19 pandemic on Friday, National School Lunch Hero Day.

When schools closed last March at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the first concern for many local districts was not necessarily virtual learning, but rather providing food for children dependent on their schools for breakfast and lunch. In the wake of rising unemployment due to COVID-19 closures, and schools closed to in-person learning, food insecurity among children was on the rise.

Food insecurity was a concern at Crestwood Area School District.

“We closed on a Friday under government orders and by Monday Metz was ready to begin feeding children in the district in a very non-traditional way,” Robert Mehalick, superintendent of the Crestwood School District, said. “We had decided that we were going to do this as a school district, whether or not we were reimbursed, because it was that important to the health and well-being of our community.”

Feeding school children during the pandemic became a top priority for Metz K-12 division. Metz is the food service provider for many local school districts, including Crestwood, Dallas, Danville, Hanover Area, Lake Lehman and Nanticoke. They prepared and distributed 744,176 meals for students from the start of the pandemic through March 2021 locally, and over a million more in districts they serve in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

“In a matter of days our team quickly developed plans in collaboration with each school district partner and in following all of the established COVID guidelines, to prepare and distribute meals to all students,” said Jim Dickson, senior vice president of Education and Corporate Dining Divisions for Metz.. “This entailed the teamwork of Metz and many school district partners, from superintendents and principals to business managers, and many other school staff members. We were all working towards one common goal – to provide food security for children through nutritious meals provided through flexible, tailored distribution programs.”

David Feller, senior area manager for Metz Culinary Management at Crestwood School District, said his staff went above and beyond in making sure children throughout the district were fed. They began grab-and-go meals for any child 18 and under in the district on March 16, 2020, and have not stopped. In the spring of last year, in addition to serving meals at a drive-thru area set up on school grounds, the Metz staff at Crestwood also distributed meals to children from a local library and a local fire department property.

“New plans were developed for each district using an approach that met the individual needs of the district in feeding their students,” said Dickson. “Plans changed almost weekly to address the changing needs of students on remote learning schedules and in dealing with school closures due to COVID outbreaks. Throughout all of the changes, our goal remained the same – ensuring nutritious meals were reaching all children.”

“This was only possible through the commitment of our Metz school lunch heroes and so many individuals in the various school districts who collaborated to make the meal distribution program work,” Dickson added. “I’m so proud of our team members who came to work, braving the virus, to help provide more food security for children in our community. They truly put their lives at risk to serve others.”