By SUE SUCHYTA
Sunday Times Newspapers
MELVINDALE – Grab-and-go took on a whole new meaning, as
Lines of vehicles await a turn March 23 for pick up of a week’s worth of student grab-and-go breakfast and lunch foods in Melvindale at Allendale Elementary School, which is part of Melvindale-Northern Allen Park Schools.
Melvindale-Northern Allen Park Schools employees worked together to assemble curbside pickup meal bags March 23 for district students.
In a move similar to what many other school districts are implementing, food bags, which provide a week’s worth of USDA breakfast and lunch food, for which each child in the MEL-NAP school district is eligible, were distributed in a drive-through queue in front of Allendale Elementary School. It marked the second MEL-NAP district food distribution.
The packages contained fruit, whole grain snacks, cereal, cheese sticks, mini snack cakes, juice boxes, sandwiches and 10 individual-size cartons of milk — five chocolate and five white.
Lisa Cadez, a paraprofessional with the district, said she enjoyed the camaraderie of working with her co-workers to fill the bags with food.
“I did have a moment, when it really hit home, after listening to the governor’s speech while packing food, that we were in Allendale’s cafeteria without our students,” she said. “I could feel the sadness in my heart. For the first time, it became real.”
Cadez said a coworker, who handed out food bags to cars in the line, said parents were relieved and appreciative of the food distribution for their children, and that the children in cars with their parents were excited by the change of pace.
A map where school children in southeast Michigan can receive meals, which is being updated daily, is available at chalkbeat.org/posts/detroit/2020/03/16/map-heres-where-detroit-children-can-get-meals-during-the-three-week-school-shutdown-for-coronavirus.