As the Eaton fire raged on 8 January, Liz Powell was focused on one thing: getting to work. Powell, Pasadena unified schools interim.
food director, rushed to the district’s service center on Woodbury Road in Altadena to meet up with food service coworkers Melissa Washington and Marcela Zamorano.
“But pretty soon the police showed up and told us we had to evacuate,” said Powell, whose home lost power and employees could hear transformers and propane tanks blowing before returning home and waiting out the blaze. “It was bad, very scary.”
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Food service crews around the Pasadena unified school district, which encompasses the fire-ravaged community of Altadena, evacuated or lost power. Some lost their homes. Still, by the next day, Powell and most of her staff regrouped, and were dispensing free lunches for students using “everything on hand” at school sites. Pasadena, like Los Angeles unified school district, is a community eligibility provision district, which means all children eat for free.
cars were arriving by drips and drabs, in stead of steady streams. Foodservice workers Sue Cisneros and Ino Cortez dispensed the meals. Photograph: Victoria Clayton-Alexander
Powell, who had seen the district through the Covid-19 pandemic, knows a crisis. She hopped online and submitted the required child nutrition program school emergency plan, which was quickly approved by the state. Then she called a food vendor she thought she could count on. Powell was right. Though schools were closed, her food service crew was up and running with enough ready-made meals to start grab and go drive-throughs at several sites around town. They also began dropping off breakfasts and lunches at the YMCA, Pasadena Parks & Rec and Pacific Community College – all places offering emergency childcare for evacuated and displaced students. At the high point, the effort totaled well over 2,000 students fed.
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