Serving Up Care: The Unseen Impact of Lunch Ladies on Campus

Behind the variety of food served inside Redwood’s cafeteria lies a tight community of lunch ladies working hard to prepare meals every day. Redwood’s lunch ladies share their essential role on Redwood’s campus.

By: Isabel Barycki

As a high school student, think of one adult member at Redwood you are grateful for…..did any lunch ladies come to mind? For some, lunch ladies may not be a crucial part of their high school experience, but for many they are. 

Imagine this, it is the fourth period. You and everyone else are hard at work on a class assignment and the room is dead silent. Remembering that it is your fourth period, you remind yourself that lunch is in a few minutes. The thought of lunch makes your stomach let out an embarrassing growl as you think about the amazing lunch you have packed. But unfortunately for some students, a lunch from home isn’t always an option. Luckily for them, Redwood offers any hungry student a free lunch and breakfast specially prepared by Redwood’s Lunch ladies. 

Preparing these meals for students, however, takes a lot of work. Raedawn Saldivar, manager of Redwood’s cafeteria, and who has been with Visalia Unified’s NSD food program since 2005 says that Redwood is a central cooking kitchen in Visalia meaning that Redwood cooks for four schools that can not prepare their own meals. Raedawn says, “Here at Redwood, we cook for Mt Whitney, Divisadero, LaJoya, and Green Acres, so we cook almost 3,000 meals daily so it’s pretty busy ordering food and serving the students.

When serving students Raedawn says, “It makes me happy to just see like there is some kids out there that this is really the only food they get, it makes me feel good when I see them coming in and leaving, makes me happy.”

As manager inside the kitchen, Raedawn says her most important job is, “making sure that the food is cooked and is at safe temperatures so they[students] don’t get sick.” Inside the cafeteria, Raedawn says a typical day for her looks like,  “overseeing all my ladies.”

One lady inside the Kitchen that Raedawn oversees is Brandy Becker, a manager trainee at Redwood’s Cafeteria.

Becker describes what a typical day looks like for her in the cafeteria, she says, “We get here at six and immediately get everything going.” however she says, “The ovens get turned on and my job is a little bit different”

As a manager in training, Becker is not out on the floor unless the ladies in the kitchen need her. She mostly does paperwork, and trains to be a new manager for when a new manager position opens up. She also in the morning time during breakfast serves breakfast to students. Becker says, “As soon as the breakfast food is cooked we immediately start rolling into lunch.”

As a student, the most convenient part about school breakfast and lunch is that it is a quick grab-and-go. During this time Becker says, “We only get these little 10-second interactions with you guys every day but we see so many of the familiar faces every single day.” She says, “It is amazing the connections that we can make with you guys just in those little 10-second interactions.”

Becker says that an important part of her job is, “making sure that the food we’re putting out is meeting all the standards, making sure you guys are taking all the correct things.”

Because of this, as a student when choosing food inside the cafeteria, a lunch lady may remind you to grab some fruits or vegetables. Although some students may find it annoying, Becker says, “It’s good for you, you need to eat your fruits and vegetables.” She says, “Especially high school students like we would love it if you would grab multiple side dishes because that’s the thing that is going to get you through the day, we know that if you’re hungry you’re not going to be able to concentrate on school, and we would hate to think that there’s any kids sitting in a class not focusing because their stomach is growling.”

Although it may be a small sum, some students may need specialized diets due to a variety of reasons such as food allergies. When working with specialized diets Becker says, “It kind of comes down from  the parents and doctors to our director who then communicates with our manager here, Raedawn, and myself and we just ensure that there’s a lady who is on the floor that has all the correct food items.”

But Becker hasn’t always been serving Redwood students. In the beginning, before becoming a lunch lady, as a single mother Becker was inspired to better fit her daughter’s schedule so she joined the Visalia Unified School District as a lunch lady. As a lunch lady, she began in her daughter’s elementary school where she then went to Golden West, allowing her to work with all ages. Becker says, “I wasn’t sure how long I’d stay with the district but I fell in love with it.” She says, “I can definitely see myself retiring from VUSD.” Becker so far has been with the district for 11 years.

Inside the kitchen preparing Redwood’s meals is Sylvia Guerrero, who works for nutritional services for Redwood High School.

Inside the cafeteria, a typical day for Guerrero starts early. She says, “Everybody goes into their departments, preps breakfast, cooks it, cleans up does lunch, same thing.”

When she is serving food to students Guerrero always makes sure to make a positive impact by acknowledging each student. She says, “I always acknowledge you guys as an individual, not just as a group of kids that are hungry.”

When providing meals for some of the other high schools and middle schools Guerrero says, “We send those in the warmers, the truck driver delivers them, brings it back, and we start over again.”

A tight community of women helps prepare Redwood’s lunches and breakfasts. Guerrero says that out of the multiple kitchens she’s worked in Redwood’s is the most, “family-oriented, so we celebrate anybody’s accomplishments.”

Guerrero says that as a lunch lady, “We’re not looked at as much other than lunch ladies and as individuals, we all are super intelligent. We have outside lives, and we’re raising families” She says, “A lot of people would probably be shocked at all the things we do accomplish outside of this building.”

“I love my job. All the women here really love their job, and for a lot of the women it’s a career choice and that’s what a lot of people don’t understand. They think we’re just a lunch lady, we just got a job. You have to go through a progressive interview, and a panel of interviews to get this position. It’s not just a job for some of them, it really is a career and their livelihood.” Says Guerrero.

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