SOUTHWICK — The Southwick-Tolland-Granville Regional School Committee voted unanimously Dec. 6 to enter into an agreement with St. Mary’s Elementary School for a pilot program where the regional school district would provide the food service students at the parochial school in Westfield.
STGRSD School Nutrition Director Matthew Lillibridge told the School Committee Nov. 15 that St. Mary’s Elementary had lost its food service partnership with Westfield’s School Department, and needed a replacement. Lillibridge said the agreement could serve both as a profit generator for the regional school district.
“It could both be profitable for us, and it supports our mission of feeding kids,” said Lillibridge Nov. 15.
This agreement will only be temporary for now, lasting from December to the end of the school year in June 2023. After that it can be renewed yearly, Lillibridge said, unless a more permanent agreement can be reached or the free school lunch policy enacted in response to COVID-19 is made permanent. The free lunch policy in Massachusetts, for now, only lasts until the end of the school year in June.
Though providing food for another school in a neighboring city will naturally require more work, Lillibridge said that the nutrition department in the STGRSD can handle it.
“Right now we are actually fully staffed, which is an insane thing to say right now for a school nutrition department,” said Lillibridge.
He said the program provide salad meals, yogurt and cereal made in the STGRSD food service kitchens, and then brought to St. Mary’s Elementary. Hot meals will also be provided — cooked in Southwick, frozen and then reheated in ovens at St. Mary’s.
For days when St. Mary’s is open while Southwick schools are closed, including days when the Southwick district declares a weather closure but St. Mary’s does not, Lillibridge said meals could be cooked, packed and frozen ahead of time.
“We will have 150 or so lunches frozen, in their freezer sitting there, so in a snow day [where Southwick closes] and they do not, our worker can just go over there and stick them in the oven and fire it off,” said Lillibridge.
Westfield’s public schools had been providing the food services for St. Mary’s before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. When the state appeared it would end the requirement to provide free student meals during the 2021-22 school year, St. Mary’s ended its partnership with Westfield, thinking the return to paid lunch was imminent.
In the meantime, St. Mary’s Elementary School interim Principal Anne Pellan-Shea said that students have had to bring their own lunches from home.
“Up until this point, the kids have been brown-bagging it every day,” said Pellan-Shea. “The parents have been extremely patient.”
The start date for the Southwick partnership hasn’t been set, but Pellan-Shea said she hopes to see it in place before Christmas.
She reiterated that St. Mary’s had been very happy about its partnership with Westfield, but that the uncertain situation with free lunches and the potential costs of another agreement made it difficult to continue.
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