School Lunch Workers At Central High Add Homegrown Flavor To Students’ Meals

ST. CROIX — Since the late 1980’s Jean Smalls has been preparing lunch for students at St. Croix Central High School, and she has been adding a homegrown touch to many of her dishes. Before students had returned to school after the destruction of Hurricane Hugo, Ms. Smalls, the kitchen manager at Central High, began planting a fruit and vegetable garden to the north side of the cafeteria. She is particularly proud of the lime tree she planted then.  “The lime tree weathered many storms thereafter and bore many fruits,” Ms. Smalls said. “It helps inspire us to continue planting.”  

According to Ms. Smalls, the garden now boasts plants of pigeon peas, sweet pepper, eggplant, a variety of tea bushes, chives and more. And Ms. Smalls, assisted by kitchen staffer, Foster Tyson, recently reaped a crop of corn.

“We are now supplying fresh corn to our children here at Central High,” Mr. Tyson, a four-year employee at the school, said. “We commonly use fresh produce from our garden here and share some with staff members.  We have to keeping pushing the food.”

St. Croix Central High School Principal Janasee Sinclair agrees the kitchen staffers’ garden is a big asset to the school.  “Our kitchen workers have an outside garden they planted and are caring for it themselves,” she said.  “We are using their products daily and we are very proud of them.”

School lunch workers territory-wide recently became full-time government employees after Senator Kurt Vialet lobbied Governor Kenneth Mapp in 2015, asking the governor to support his efforts in allocating funds that would see these employees receiving a raise of $6,000 annually — making them full-time government employees eligible for benefits received by other DOE workers.

The monies were allocated through bill No. 31-0190, “an Act establishing appropriations for the operation of the Government of the Virgin Islands during the fiscal year October 1, 2015, to September 30, 2016,” through a line item of over $1.2 million specifically for the D.O.E.’s food service employees (School Lunch Program).