- Video shows the Delano Unified School District's new addition to their breakfast program.
- The Cruising Cafe is being launched in middle schools first to assist with their low breakfast intake statistics but will later expand to elementary schools where numbers are also low.
- D.U.S.D Food Services Director John Chavolla talks about the importance this van could bring and cafeteria helper Verl Hensley shares his experience with working hands on with students in the lunch room.
The Delano Unified School District just purchased this van called the Cruising Cafe as a way to expand its breakfast program after realizing its participation numbers were low. The goal is to drive this van during school hours on campus to deliver food to students who may have missed breakfast, but, this is just the start of the district plan.
“The goal is to start with the middle schools because that the lowest participation and then go to the elementary schools so the goal is to have every school site with one of these vehicles,” said John Chavolla, Director of Food Services for the Delano Unified School District.
Chavolla says as of right now, the middle schools are serving breakfast to around 36-percent of students and reaching 47-percent for their elementary school sites.
Chavolla says they want the numbers to be similar to their lunch results, which range from about 60-80 percent and believes this van will do the trick.
“They want to go play with their friends or go on the swings so they ended up going to class hungry so we want to reach out to them by driving this to the location where they’re at playing with their friends so that they can get a breakfast,” said Chavolla.
Chavolla says a nutritious breakfast correlates to students being more engaged in the classroom, which can lead to higher testing scores.
Cafeteria helper Verl Hensley has been working for the district’s food service since 2019 and says it's not uncommon to see the cafeteria almost empty in the morning.
“I feel like a mix of kids not really wanting to wake up to come for breakfast and also just the idea of school food in general I feel like kids have that stigma like ‘oh its school food we don’t want to eat that,’” said Hensley.
Although he’s not a student, Hensley says he is very excited to see this van be put to use and he hopes kids start to get excited about eating to later translate into getting them excited to eat lunch and dinner.
“Breakfast is like the start of our day. that's kind of like if we have a good breakfast and we have that energy boost for the whole day,” said Hensley. “Typically if you’re having a great day, your whole day is going to be good.”
The all-electric van has the capacity to hold 200-300 meals and can also store both hot and cold food.
Chavolla says having this flexibility caters to their ideas of bringing in a bigger variety of breakfast items.
“Hot foods like Cinnabon’s maybe some donuts some nutrition donuts so we do want to increase the different varieties that they can pick.”
The goal is to have this van in full effect by November 1st, 2023 later expanding to purchasing an additional four vans to service the local middle schools.
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