Still, spirits were high.
Children in waiting vehicles hung out of windows waving to passersby and shouting to leashed dogs on the sidewalk. A smiling LISD Superintendent Bruce Gearing—hard to identify in a ballcap and sunglasses instead of his trademark suit—directed the traffic slowly entering the campus from Deercreek Lane. At the other end of the line, more than a dozen LISD Child Nutrition Services employees cheerfully greeted patient families.
The line started behind the school near the cafeteria and formed a large “S” in the parking lot before forking out onto both the northbound and southbound lanes of Deercreek Lane.
Once a vehicle reached the front of the line, drivers would tell LISD Child Nutrition Services' Sue Stifflemire—who stood nearly 10 feet from vehicles while wearing a mask, a pink cowboy hat and pink sunglasses—how many students needed meals. Stifflemire then would relay the number to the meal bag distributors by whiteboard or by holding up fingers.
CNS employees would then load the bags—white ones for breakfast, brown ones for lunch—onto a rolling cart for the driver to pick up without leaving their vehicle.
Near Stifflemire, a line for walkups formed, where one group at a time would walk up to a second cart with their meals.
Each student received a lunch for March 25 and a breakfast for March 26. Tuesday’s Bagdad menu included hot dogs for lunch and cereal and fruit for breakfast.
The free meals, which aims to aid students who rely upon nutrition at school, will continue through at least April 3.
To aid students during that time who rely upon meals at school, LISD is offering free meal pickup from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. during school days at the following locations:
- Bagdad Elementary School, 800 Deercreek Lane, Leander;
- Reed Elementary School, 1515 Little Elm Trail, Cedar Park;
- River Place Elementary School, 6500 Sitio Del Rio Blvd., Austin; and
- Running Brushy Middle School, 2303 Lakeline Blvd., Austin.
On Tuesdays only, all four sites will also offer breakfast from 7:30-9 a.m.
The free meals are available to all LISD students. Proof of enrollment will not be required, but Texas Department of Agriculture guidelines require that a student be present during pickup.
