Despite the challenges of a virtual semester for NC students, the NC café still prepares food. This semester, instead of their normal lunch routine, the café implemented curbside food pickup every Monday. Since September 14, any parent or guardian could pick up a Meal Kit at North Cobb for free for their child.  

Meal kits consist of five lunch and breakfast meals frozen with instructions on how to heat and prepare them. Parents and guardians can click here to see the high school menu for Meal Kits. When the school receives the food from the Food and Nutrition warehouse for the next week, the cafeteria team checks the food for any damages and then stores the food immediately. On Monday mornings, the café team begins packaging the food for the Meal Kits. 

“We have a significant student body who are free and reduced. So for the parents and the guardians to be able to take the meal from here, five breakfasts and five lunches, that helps a long way because now they do not have to worry about the students at home cooking breakfast or lunch for them. It’s already done. If parents are working, if the students are home, these are fairly easy instructions so if need be the students can easily warm up the food, and they can enjoy the breakfast and lunch right there,” Asif Edrish, head of Food Services at North Cobb, said. 

The school now provides adult meal kits for purchase. Parents and guardians can pick up these meal kits at the same time as regular meal kits with a purchase on MyPaymentsPlus. On the week of September 14th, the cafeteria also sold family meal kits. The options included a BBQ Pork Dinner and an Alfredo Pasta with Chicken and Broccoli. 

When picking up a meal kit, between the times of 4-6 pm on Mondays, parents and guardians pull their cars up to the road that leads into the school courtyard on the side of the Deal building. Once there, cafeteria employees radio into the main cafeteria for the right amount of meal kits for each car. This depends on the number of children from the age of 0-18 needing a meal kit. After cafe employees bring the meal kits out of the main cafeteria, they load the food into the family’s car trunk and send them on their way. 

“When they come we greet them, we have to keep in mind safety, so not only do we wear masks which is mandatory for us in the kitchen, the people who talk to them who are in the front wear visors. We wear gloves and we put the food in their car and it’s a lot of food. So far, the response has been really good and the students enjoy their meal,” Edrish said. 

 Whether it be from meal kit pickups or in-person lunch when students can go back to school on November 5th. The NC café always supports its students and hopes to continue doing so even during this virtual semester. 

“I enjoy the work that I do because especially [at the]…end of the day when I think about that I made a difference with the students and that’s a big payoff to me,” Edrish said.