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For the past five years, Powell Valley Healthcare has teamed up with volunteers in the Americorp VISTA program to provide free lunches to kids during the summer. After this year’s total of …
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For the past five years, Powell Valley Healthcare has teamed up with volunteers in the Americorp VISTA program to provide free lunches to kids during the summer. After this year’s total of nearly 9,300 lunches served, the program has served over 28,000 free lunches over its five-year history.
“It’s unbelievable,” said PVHC Board Treasurer R.J. Kost at the board’s monthly meeting in August, where the final figure was announced.
The lunches were served weekdays from May 31 through July 29.
Travis Tucker, PVHC nutrition services director, coordinated the assembly line to pack the lunches with VISTA volunteers Yogi Sullivan and Isaac Gutierrez.
“If you’ve ever watched the assembly, it’s quite a production,” said Terry Odom, PVHC CEO.
Tucker said, despite the three of them being experienced with serving the lunches, it was pretty chaotic at the start. He had to seek out more assistance from volunteers within his department to have the manpower to pack the 9,300 lunches, which beat the 2020 record of 6,200 meals.
Tucker said a lot of the increased demand this year was likely due to the decreased travel people are doing this summer, as well as the increased food costs people are enduring.
“Food costs are just through the roof, along with everything else,” Tucker said.
This year, Tucker added, was the first time in 13 years he’s had to raise prices at the PVHC cafeteria.
“It’s really hitting us hard,” Tucker said.
Besides the challenge and cost of packing so many lunches, the coordinators also had to contend with supply chain issues.
“One week you could get apples and the next week you couldn’t. We actually went through a period of time that we couldn’t get any peanut butter,” Tucker said.
Despite all the challenges, the program enjoyed another successful year.
“I’m glad people are starting to take advantage of it,” Tucker said.
Besides the rewards of doing good for the community, Tucker said, the VISTA volunteers are learning a lot of valuable leadership skills they’ll take with them when they enter their future careers.
