During times of tumult is when individuals and institutions do their best to help others. We’re already hearing stories of altruism in West Virginia as the COVID-19 virus dramatically impacts our lives.
One of the earliest examples is the West Virginia Department of Education and child nutrition program.
That program is vitally important to the health and well-being of thousands of West Virginia children. More than 180,000 children qualify for the school breakfast and lunch programs.
In a more perfect world, parents would ensure that their children are getting decent meals, but we know that’s not always the case for a variety of reasons. Every teacher has stories about sending a child home for the weekend with something to eat in their backpack to make sure they didn’t go hungry.
So, school officials were rightfully worried about how the shutdown as a result of the pandemic would affect those children.
When Governor Justice announced last Friday that he was closing schools for at least two weeks, state Department of Education officials and county schools went into action immediately to put in place feeding programs.
Each county school system is required to have an emergency preparedness plan for an infectious disease outbreak, and that plan must include how the schools will meet specific student needs when the school schedule is disrupted.
The counties added some improvisation along with the plans to figure out how to get meals to children without congregating them in one place. Cafeteria cooks, school bus drivers along with some teacher volunteers and other service workers teamed up to get the food delivery programs up and running.
By Monday morning, less than 48 hours after the school closing announcement, all 55 counties were feeding children at more than 500 sites.
Props to State School Superintendent Clayton Burch, who just took over the job a few weeks ago, his leadership team, the Office of Child Nutrition and the hundreds of county school employees who have pitched in to make this happen.
The quick turnaround of the school breakfast and lunch program is nothing short of amazing.
We often hear how the bureaucracies of government are slow to react and reluctant to change. There is a lot of truth to that, but it is also important, especially during these times, to highlight when government gets it right.