School closures have caused a lot of disruption, find out How Seattle Schools are handling Covid-19 for students,
Broadview Thomson K-8, located at 13052 Greenwood Ave N, Seattle, WA 98133 is doing a ton for the kids while they are not attending schools. As you may know, in addition to education, many kids rely on the school for their meals.
We met with Lauri McVicar who is the Administrative Secretary at the school. We talk about the lunch program that they are offering, as well as some other options that we can do to help the students at this time.
Sandra: Hey, so we are here with Lauri McVicar who is the admin secretary to Broadview Thomson school and now that the schools are out, one of the big concerns is, what are kids doing for meals? Tell us what you need and how the community can help and how the school district is addressing everything.
Lauri: So right now our district is providing lunch meals for the kids with a breakfast item for the next day. Our side has about an average of 250 that are being served every single day and they are being prepared by our lunch ladies. So our lunch staff is coming in everyday, they’re working hard. love them and so they’re preparing the food, getting them in sacks, having it distributed. And we’ve chosen to be outside, we think it helps the community identify where to go for it.
Lauri: So with that, the other thing that we do here at Broadview Thomson is we have about 150 students every single Friday that normally get food bags and that’s to support them on the weekends. We sit right under 60% free and reduced lunch.
Sandra: Is the school district, are they needing volunteers or do you have that kind of taken care of?
Lauri: They’ve got our district staff doing it and mainly just because they can provide them with that training. So right now they’re not doing the volunteers. Where we need the volunteers are like our Ballard food bank. So with those 150 lunches that we normally receive, Ballard food bank has been packing up and one of our parents organizes a group that goes down with a big vehicle, they pick them up.
So, they’ve been delivering what they told us was like 60 to 90 at the district level and then sending them up that way. Our volunteer has also picked up more. Pretty much she was here all last week with the bags. And so the families could pick up and then, usually has enough in the bag for a weekend of food that they’ll eat, students and snacks. So our kids that’s their favorite part. Is there’s snacks in it.
Sandra: I think that’s everybody.
Lauri: Yeah, trail mix and crackers and yeah, stuff that you know a kid’s going to eat.
Steve: I saw cookies over there.
Lauri: Yes
Sandra: And one thing though is, so I’ve been you know reading about what the school district has been doing and I have to say, I’m like super impressed with how fast the Seattle school district has just been reacting. I mean last week, through out the whole district, I mean they gave like 10,000 meals. You know, breakfast and lunch. I mean that’s amazing to me and I think that’s just, you know, I think that’s just amazing and you know, it’s people like you that are making all that happen and you know, and we just so appreciate you and everything that the district is doing. ’cause I mean, it is a big job and to go from doing it one way and then, it’s cold out here, and then all of a sudden to have to go in another direction and just be able to turn on a dime and do that and get it out here and things are moving smoothly I mean it’s just really impressive. So, I say kudos and so, what do you need from people? I know gift cards.
Lauri: Gift cards are the biggest. We’ve had people emailing them to my email accounts so it’s LMCVICAR@SEATTLESCHOOLS.ORG
And we’ve even received it from an aunt that lives in New Zealand. So she was able to do that. The teachers are reaching out to their students so we’ve had a lot of teachers give me a referral of like this family really needs support right now. For most of them I just stick it in the mail. I’ve got one family that’s meeting here today for support and it’s just trying to keep up with, you know, what they are saying their needs are right now. So the community has been supporting the gift cards, the right now needs fund, the Amazon had started two years ago, which is great.
I think the biggest thing that I’m starting to hear from our parents is, yeah, glad that the paper copies are out today for the K-5 but we had middle schoolers and their computer is not working or it just broke or we don’t have internet access ’cause we go to the library normally.
Sandra: Right.
Lauri: And the library is closed and you know, so it’d be, my dream would be to have like a bunch of computers that are donated directly to the families rather than ’cause if they’re district computers, we can’t have them out.
Sandra: Right. I mean, I think probably a lot of people would have like old computers that they’re really not doing anything with. I hadn’t even thought about that, like a computer drive, yeah, that’s a great idea.
Lauri: And you know then the question would be the next part is, getting them that access to the internet.
Sandra: And I think companies are stepping up. I mean comcast, verizon they’ve all talked about that.
Lauri: Right and how to get it out there. We’re all in this together. You know what’s amazing to me is I live in the neighborhood and normally, Neighbors don’t talk as often as they used to. And I noticing our neighbors are talking to each other and they’re you know swinging by and keeping that 6 feet distance.
Sandra: Right.
Lauri: But just sort of you know, checking in with each other.
Sandra: Right, I’ve noticed that on my street too which I think is great. So, anyhow, we will put all of this information together so that people know where to go and I love the idea of a computer drive. So, maybe we can chat about that a little bit more and maybe kinda figure out what we could do with that. ’cause, yeah, I mean I’m sure people have, you know, spare computers that they’re just not using
Lauri: Or even just the, you know, I know it’s like our house we’ve updated our iPads, you know, so we have one of the original iPads
Sandra: Right.
✔️Visit http://www.alliance4ed.org/connect-wi…/right-now-needs-fund/ to learn more about the Right Now Needs Fund set up by Amazon.
✔️If you would like to send an e-gift card, you can email Lauri at LMcVicar@seattleschools.org
✔️Visit https://www.ballardfoodbank.org/volunteer if you are interested in volunteering at the Ballard Food Bank
