SCHOOLS
feed need t h e
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Liz Cartano and her team sprang into action when the pandemic started to ensure students were fed. They haven’t stopped. By Co ur t ney H ayes | P h o to by Co r n ell Watso n
hartwells School Dining Services Director of Dining Liz Cartano had to think very differently about school lunches when Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools transitioned to learning from home on March 16. She and her team of 85 staff and volunteers began delivering meals to pickup sites with the Food for Students program, originally called Food for the Summer. “It’s taken the whole community to come together,” Liz says, referring to the volunteer office, police department, faith-based organizations and more groups that help ensure more than 600,000 meals – and counting – make it safely into the hands of students. We asked Liz to share insights on the process.
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chapelhillmagazine.com
November 2020
PIVOTING “We had a packaged concept [from our original Food for the Summer program] that we could pull off the shelf as needed that already had the logistics figured out. We had a website where we could point people to find out pickup locations and times. … The biggest change [since we started] is that we now have access to buses. … When people see the buses, it gives them a warm and fuzzy feeling.”
LINKING UP “Connecting with students has been a bit of a process. We started out with a bunch of different housing complexes where we knew some families might be struggling. We connected with social workers who knew where students might be struggling. The [Refugee Support
