Over 2.1 million hamburger buns served and counting
By Susan Nienow CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Theresa Jenkins, food service manager, prepares yams for a special holiday meal for students at Alberta Smith Elementary School. The lunch ladies at Alberta Smith serve about 500 meals each school day.

The bells ring and another shift of hungry kids burst through the school cafeteria doors expecting lunch. More than 50,000 students are fed by Chesterfield schools' lunch ladies every school day. It's their job to make sure when the menu says pizza, it's served fresh, hot, and they don't run out before the last lunch period.

Growing kids are usually a hungry bunch, and that's no different in Chesterfield. The county's kids drink over 3.5 million cartons of milk and 1.2 million cartons of juice in a school year. They also consume 4.5 million packets of ketchup and 30,000 pounds of corn dog nuggets.

The schools' lunch ladies serve 2.1 million hamburger buns along with hamburgers, 8,500 pounds of barbeque and 1.5 million chicken filets, said Warren Grigg, director of nutrition services.

Then, there are the 216,000 hot dog buns, 23,500 loaves of bread and 260,000 flour tortilla shells. And yes, the kids eat their veggies - 30,000 pounds of salad mix, 15,000 pounds of mixed vegetables and 12,000 pounds of tomatoes.

Jamie Yacoviello gets a head start on the next day's lunch by fixing pizzas.

Just ask Clover Hill High School's food service manager Sue Bartos what it's like to feed more than 1,100 hungry teens five days a week, and she will say, "We each have our jobs, and everyone pitches in. We work like a well-oiled machine." She and her team of eight make it look easy.

"We cook in batches so the food is fresh for each lunch period." There are no two-hour-old soggy French fries.

Clover Hill's food service workers serve five seatings of students an a la carte menu with pizza, barbeque sandwiches, chicken sandwiches, hamburgers and salads. Wednesdays are a big hit since Pizza Hut pizza tops the menu. They also serve breakfast starting at 7 a.m. - biscuits, croissants, French toast, cinnamon rolls, five kinds of juice, hot chocolate and coffee.

There is no talking as Bartos' crew quickly goes about its job of feeding students. After a short breather, someone yells, "Bell!" and another lunch shift comes through the doors.

When a student's father recently came through the line, he asked for a straw. "No straws," said Bartos. "It would be a nightmare." Straws are a great way to shoot food or spit balls.

The crew is glad to see myLunchMoney. com become more popular. (The Web site allows parents to pay for their children's lunches online.) "You should see the balled up bills we get," said one crew member. "We get their pocket lint and the old M&Ms, too."

"It's like origami," Bartos added, "[and] they often hand us the food, not the money."

"We know all the kids and speak to them," continued Bartos. myLunchMoney.com also helps the lunch ladies learn the kids' names. When students enter their pin number, their name and photo flash up on the cashier's screen.

Bartos' crew has had to make adjustments after the number of students dropped when some moved to the new Cosby High School. After years of predictable food portioning, now the first lunch period kids are a mystery since there are fewer students. Just how many chicken filets will they eat? The goal is to guess the right number without fixing too few or enough to feed another small country in Africa.

"The main thing is to feed the kids," said Bartos.

But that doesn't mean they can't have fun doing it. "We wear football jerseys for game days and dress up for spirit week. To entertain the kids, [we] have a dry erase board [we] use to write useless facts, like 'Celery takes more calories to eat than it has.'"

The hours make these jobs attractive, Bartos said. The first workers arrive about 6 a.m., and most are finished by 1:30 p.m. Their hours depend on what part of the food preparation they do. All employees are part-time except the manager and assistant manager.

"We're here because of our children - to be home when they get home," said Bartos. She had been working for the Marriott, but needed her weekends and evenings free. "It's the best thing I ever did for my children and my marriage," she concluded.

Theresa Jenkins, food service manager at Alberta Smith Elementary School, calls planning and serving meals "a guessing game." Recently, she ran out of grilled cheese sandwiches, so she fixed an additional 30 the next week and still ran out. Since the school also offers veggie meals, salads and other entrees, the students don't ever go hungry, but it is always the goal not to run out of anything before the last lunch.

"We always fix meals a day ahead, so we are ready for the next lunchtime," said Jenkins.

The first to arrive to the cafeteria is Jamie Yacoviello who comes in at 8:30 a.m. By 9:15 a.m., she's working on the food for the next day. Most of the food is already prepared, but needs to be heated or assembled. Trays of food are stored in large refrigerators until they are put in the ovens.

The first lunch is served at 11:45 a.m., and the ladies work non-stop until the last ends at 1 p.m. The job is physically demanding as the ladies must lift large trays of food and crates of drinks.

With elementary students, there are logistical problems, Jenkins explained. Students get their milk, juice and utensils at the front of the line, and then have to put them down to pick up their tray. Often the ladies need to step in and sort things out, so the line can keep moving. "The kids have to have their tray a certain way," and often hold up the line while they rearrange things, she laughed.

"The fourth and fifth graders are the loudest," she said. They chatter the whole time, checking to see what their friends are going to eat. Nacho day with chili is really messy, because they spill the chili on everything, Jenkins said. The kids don't usually drop their trays, but do spill their milk or juice.

So, why would anyone want to work at flash speed for four hours or more, serving what amounts to a small army? It all comes down to the kids - their adopted kids at school and their real ones at home.