The meals being distributed consist of a variety of different foods that would have been offered in the situation that school wasn’t closed down for COVID, including various fruits, vegetables, milk, cookies, pizza kits, and more. (Photo courtesy of Nella Shock)

By Garrett Harper For The Huron Hub
Posted Dec. 21, 2020
Article updated

With COVID-19 shutting down schools all over the country, students are left without the ability to get the lunch that they would normally get from their school cafeteria.

As a way to remedy this, the Food Service team in the Huron School District decided to come up with a solution to this problem to help the students get the food they need.

Nella Shock and the rest of the Food Service team have set up a system where parents can drive to the East entrance of Huron High School and receive food for their kids for the week on Mondays and Thursdays.

The meals being distributed consist of a variety of different foods that would have been offered in the situation that school wasn’t closed down for COVID, including various fruits, vegetables, milk, cookies, pizza kits, and more.

This food distribution program has been running since the original lockdown in March, when schools started shutting down due to COVID concerns. Around the time the school year would have ended in June, they put the program on hold.

It was resumed on Nov. 16 to continue giving meals to the students, but will be going on a hiatus for Christmas break on Dec. 18.

After Christmas break, the Food Service team will be back on Jan. 4 to continue distributing food on Mondays and Thursdays until Jan. 19, when they will only be distributing the meals on Mondays from that point forward.

Every Monday and Thursday during the program, Nella and her team arrive at the school at 7:30 a.m. and spend over four hours making sure that everything is in order.

They also would spend days preparing for their next distribution day.

The team would then hand out the meals for the families of more than 600 kids from 1:00-3:00 p.m.

To help spread some holiday cheer for all the students, the team went above and beyond by writing Christmas cards for the kids to go along with their meals last week.

In addition to being an important nutritional resource for the students in the district, the program has also helped the Food Service members by allowing them to work during these difficult pandemic times.

Nella and her team work tirelessly to make sure that this operation can work smoothly, and it shows with how many people are able to still get food from the school.