As Hunger Action Month continues, find inspiration (like we did!) from this story about a 30-year friendship that started in school cafeterias.
Kathy Glindmeier and Debbie McCarron are consultants for the Arizona Food Bank Network, lending their expertise in food service administration to schools statewide that need help with programs to feed students. Their passion for feeding children began in the 1990s. Both women were food directors for schools across the valley.
Kathy was legendary as an “efficiency expert” while Debbie was known for “elaborate marketing”, staging her cafeterias with beautiful salad bars and food displays to enhance the student dining experience.
Debbie appreciated how parents might have needed help, as she was raising her own 3 boys and coming home to make dinner, do the wash, and attend soccer games. “It wasn’t easy,” Debbie says, “but my husband was a huge help. He worked in the same school district as my sons so, very fortunately, we all had the same school schedule. We were very busy.”
An experience in Kathy’s life cemented her commitment to feeding children, too. In the early 2000s when she was doing some reports, she noticed something odd; a kitchen manager at one of her schools kept a can opener in her desk drawer. Kathy learned that three kids from the same family came by every day with a can of refried beans, and asked the kitchen manager to open it – because that was lunch. For all three of them. No tortillas, no cheese, no veggies. Just beans.
“I called the principal and asked her ‘hey, so what’s the story with this?’”. A working single father would get cans of generic refried beans for his kids for lunch at school. It was all he could afford. Kathy decided then and there that she was going to do something about this. “So, that’s when I said, okay, I’m gonna eliminate or reduce the co-pays for every child I can,” Kathy said. Remarkably, through her sheer determination, she did just that for the Paradise Valley Unified School District.
Over the years, Kathy and Debbie’s professional connection and commitment to feeding kids – all kids – became stronger. They supported each other with check-in calls and advice, and even visited each other from time to time. Their working relationship got that much stronger when both women, almost simultaneously, were diagnosed with cancer. Moving from support professionally to also personally, they leaned on each other for kind words and encouragement at times when it was needed most. Fortunately, they both recovered, and are now retired.
But these resilient advocates re-entered the work force to continue “their calling”.
“A kid’s a kid. They gotta eat,” says Kathy.
A survey by AzFBN a few years ago showed that when it came to meal programs, charter school administrators needed help for everything from paperwork to planning, and that every school’s need was slightly different. Thanks to a grant from Share Our Strength/No Kid Hungry, AzFBN was able to hire Kathy and Debbie two years ago for one mission: contact schools across Arizona and help get meal programs up and running. They started with a focus on charter schools, a list that topped 600!
“There are a lot of rules. It’s like learning a foreign language,” Kathy says. Debbie and Kathy make it as smooth an undertaking as possible for school directors, and have even created a user-friendly tool kit that breaks everything down. They line up resources, help train administrators on paperwork, and scout resources. They don’t let things like a school not having kitchen space stop them, either, offering ideas like other schools nearby that may be able to cater, or even lists of catering companies.
“A child does not choose their life circumstance; they are born into it. There is honor in feeding children."
Just last year, Kathy and Debbie helped institute food service in about 30 charter schools that feed at least 2,300 children each school day. Children that may have gone hungry before.
“A child does not choose their life circumstance, they are born into it. There is honor in feeding children,” says Kathy. Debbie feels the same way.
What are Kathy and Debbie wishing for this Hunger Action month? As three wishes are traditional (and they didn’t want to narrow it down to just one) please help by being an advocate for:
- Universal meals for all children. Debbie says that universal meals are so important, not just to help as many kids as possible, but also to prevent ‘food shaming’. “Students who need free or reduced [price] meals are often shamed by other students,” she said with sadness.
- Teaching tools for schools looking to institute a lunch program. This one Kathy and Debbie are taking into their own hands, and developing resources that they feel will truly make a difference for an administrator taking on providing school meals for the first time.
- Making sure that schools that need help are seen and get connected to resources.
It’s clear to see why the spirit of these two champions keeps the team at AzFBN pushing to end hunger every day. We are so fortunate to have their expertise, enthusiasm, and dedication as we all work to ensure kids have what they need to succeed.
Thank you, Kathy and Debbie. The power of that can of beans marches on.
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