By Cyndi Sellers
The Cameron Parish school nutrition program has been a resounding success, thanks to dedicated employees and volunteers. Dr. Holly Castile, Supervisor of Food and Nutrition, announced that at the close of Tuesday, Apr. 14, the Cameron Parish School Board’s School Nutrition Program has served 30,712 meals to the children of Cameron Parish.
Each week the staff meets at Grand Lake High School Cafeteria to package five breakfasts and five lunches for each child who is participating in the program. Parents drive through at one of the following locations to pick up meals, milk, and juice: Grand Lake Cafeteria, Creole Fire Station, Cameron Public Library, Hackberry Community Center, and Johnson Bayou Recreation Center.
The Grand Lake Cafeteria Manager, Tammy Guidry, leads a team of employees that includes Nicole Nunez (South Cameron Cafeteria Manager), Ida Whetstone, Becky Logan, Rachel Clement, Victoria Weaver, Gwen Robicheaux, and David Dimas. These individuals have worked extensively during the school closure in order to provide nutritious meals to our students.
Representatives of business and industry in Cameron and Hackberry joined forces over the past two weeks with the Cameron Parish School Board, Cameron Parish Police Jury, Cameron Parish Sheriff’s Office and the Cameron Lions Club to connect food with children. The Cameron Parish School Board emergency feeding program is coordinated by Dr. Holly Castile, Supervisor of Food & Nutrition and Leadership Development.
The following School Board employees have shown up every week to help package food and/or deliver meals at the various locations: Kristi LeDoux, Cherie Myers, Tracie Broussard, Donna Arrington, Tara Cox, Angie Theriot, Kempa Savoie, Leslea Mudd, Amy Pearce, Joshua Fitkin, Misty Hackler, Karen Ray, Heidi Baccigalopi, Paulette Campbell, Kathy Helmer, and Angie Little. In addition, the School Resource Officers have been instrumental in the delivery of meals to each site, where community volunteers have assisted in distribution.
Dr. Castile says meals will continue to be served through the month of April at each location; however, the School Nutrition Program will begin to transition to the Healthy School Food Collaborative Program the first week of May. This program will deliver shelf stable foods to each family that signs up at the following link
https://www.emailmeform.com/builder/emf/thsfc/cameronemergencymeals. Each child will receive five breakfasts, five lunches, five snacks, and five suppers to be delivered to their homes each week. Information will be sent out to all parents this week.
The Healthy School Food Collaborative is a New Orleans based organization that provides healthy sustainable meal choices to students, families and communities in order to improve the nutritional impact in education, with a focus on charter schools. Emergency feeding is another service they provide.