After Durham ended its meal program, local restaurants have stepped up to feed students
Monday marked the beginning of the first week without a meal distribution program from Durham Public Schools.
But in its place, local restaurants, the Durham Public Schools Foundation and nutrition research organization Food Insights Group have organized a new distribution program called Durham FEAST. The first meals will be served Thursday, distributed chilled to families and meant to be reheated at home.
“The restaurant community reached out and said ‘Can we help?’ because that’s the community we have,” said Linden Thayer of the Food Insights Group. “They’re struggling too. They can produce a great product, sourced from their suppliers and keep those chains moving.”
Two weeks ago, Durham Public Schools announced it would suspend its meal distribution program. North Carolina system employees are offered 168 hours of paid sick time while schools are closed, which Durham FEAST organizers pointed to as one of the reasons the school system ended its program. Also, an employee of that meal distribution program tested positive for COVID-19.
Thayer’s organization studies nutrition in schools and has been working on new models for the school lunch. Previously the group helped organize the Durham Bowls program, which put dishes from local chefs into the lunch line of district schools.
Now, Thayer said the need was more immediate.
“We’ve been working with Durham Public Schools for years on a central kitchen feasibility study,” Thayer said. “In the middle of this drops COVID-19.”
Recruiting restaurants was easy
Efforts to stop the spread of the virus have included closing all school through the middle of May, and closing all restaurants indefinitely except for takeout. That means there are a lot of restaurant workers currently unemployed and a lot of children dependent on the meals from school. Thayer estimates that more than half of Durham’s students rely on free or reduced-price lunch.
Andrea Reusing, the James Beard-winning chef of Lantern and The Durham, has helped organize the participating restaurants. The restaurants are free to serve what they like, as long as they meet certain nutritional requirements.
Recruiting restaurants has proved to be easy, Reusing said. So far there are five participants this week and potentially twice that many next week.
“So far no one has said no,” Reusing said. “Most people, rightly, see it’s going to be, at best, break-even. And actually that’s OK. At this moment, getting people a weekly paycheck is really important.”
Among the restaurants and caterers are Beyu Caffe, Centro, the Durham Hotel, Monuts, Southern Harvest and Spicy Green.
Restaurants and particularly caterers know this work, Reusing said, but since the showdown have had little way to use those skills, or to collect a steady paycheck. The meal program could offer both, Reusing said.
“We’re trying to put people back to work,” Reusing said. “This is a model that could be duplicated anywhere. Restaurants are just sitting there with this capacity. This is what we do. Sanitation and efficiency are essential parts of what we do every day.”
It was clear a new program was needed
FIG serves as an intermediary in this meals program, Thayer said. The group is the school system’s vendor for meals, then subcontracts the work to the restaurant, serving as a pass-through for USDA meal reimbursement funds. Restaurants will be paid $3.70 for each dinner served and $2 for each breakfast.
“There’s not enough money in the system,” Thayer said. “School systems are working with the barest of bare bones. The nutrition staff are frontline workers on this issue and always have been. They’re feeding millions of children every year who would otherwise go hungry. I think we know that in theory, but we don’t always absorb what they’re doing as vital.”
The Durham Public Schools Foundation is organizing funds and suppliers for the program, including additional meals for adult family members. Executive director of the DPS Foundation, Magan Gonzales-Smith, said it was clear a new program was needed.
“When DPS had to end that meal program we were concerned about how children and families would continue to get food,” Gonzales-Smith said.
When it ended the program, DPS was distributing 11,000 meals among 81 sites, Thayer said. Durham FEAST will aim for around half that, at 42 sites, she said, but hopes to ramp up to that number. The group expects to continue serving until mid-May.
For more information on the meal distribution program, visit Durham FEAST at durhamfeast.org.
This story was originally published April 14, 2020 at 5:55 PM.
