KP Duty
Joel and I were on kitchen duty one day this week. Holy Cross school has a lunch program that feeds the 440 students, the staff, and various volunteers who may be working at the school on that day.
The feeding program was started in response to the need to feed the children so they were able to be more productive during the school day. The kitchen is staffed with ladies who are associated with the school community.
 As we worked alongside the ladies they discussed their lives and asked questions about ours. They wake early to care for their families, providing breakfast, packing lunches, making sure everyones up and ready to start the day. They are often at the school by 7:00am to start prepping for lunch. The dishes that have dried overnight are ready to be re-stacked, and the cooking begins. The classes start coming at 11:30, and there is a steady stream of food to dish out until 12:30. Then the clean up begins. Plates scraped, dishes, glasses and cutlery piled. Some students will stay behind, given the task of wiping the tables and sweeping the floor.From my experience the task is given to those students who displayed a little too much energy during lunch.


Joel and I were rinsing and stacking, as we listened to the ladies. They seemed somewhat amused that some of them could sit longer as we washed. They kept asking if we were sure that was okay. They were also somewhat amused to have Joel in their midst.Although they are exposed to volunteer teams helping in their kitchen, a teenaged male seems to still be a novelty.We now understand to a small extent what feeding and cleaning for 440 students feels like.