On heels of award nomination, Buffalo schools’ nutrition chief reflects on 30 years of food service

When Bridget O’Brien Wood displays on three a long time of faculty lunches on the eve of her retirement, she marvels at how far the Buffalo district has come.

The district’s longtime director of kid diet providers, who retires on the finish of the varsity yr, remembers a USDA commodities program within the early 2000s that modeled college lunches after McDonald’s Happy Meals throughout America’s fast-food craze. She additionally recollects when there was no native commissary for making ready meals. 

But O’Brien Wood, the self-effacing chief of 460 meals service staff in about 80 faculties, in all probability received’t inform you about her Nov. 4 nomination by Gov. Kathy Hochul for the Recognizing Inspiring School Employees (RISE) Award. In reality, she had been reluctant to share the information with household and mates as a result of she was undecided precisely what the nationwide award based simply 4 years in the past really was.

“It’s very humbling,” O’Brien Wood stated final week. “I didn’t even know who nominated me.”

She has since realized that representatives from the kid diet program within the New York State Education Department nominated her for the award to be handed out to 1 particular person within the nation every spring by the secretary of Education for “exemplary service to college students in pre-kindergarten by way of highschool.” O’Brien Wood believes her work in providing lunches and breakfasts daily to 30,000 students throughout the Covid-19 pandemic college closures could have been the explanation for the nomination. 

Across the area, college districts will roll out grab-and-go meals beginning Tuesday to make sure that these college students who depend on college lunches and breakfasts are nonetheless getting

Thinking again to that effort, she emphasised it wasn’t a “one-woman present.” She credited WNY Peacemakers and its coordinator the Rev. James Giles, the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority, and her group of supervisors, cook dinner managers and meals service staff who banded collectively day by day to arrange and ship prepackaged meals to twenty-eight pick-up websites throughout the town.

“We needed to rethink all the things in a single day,” O’Brien Wood recalled.







Bridget O'Brien Wood

Bridget O’Brien Wood, director of kid diet providers for the Buffalo Public Schools, Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022.




Providing a dependable supply of meals throughout a group well being emergency in one of many nation’s poorest large cities was on the coronary heart of O’Brien Wood’s mission.

“This is our time to assist,” she remembered considering. “This group effort is the true sense of being a civil servant.”

The RISE Award nomination may be appreciation for her bigger physique work, which she fell in love with after stints at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center and Ford. “It’s a little bit jewel for the top of an period,” she stated.

On 37 acres of farmland leased by the Providence Farm Collective, individuals from 9 ethnic teams get an opportunity to return to their roots, develop recent produce and earn revenue.

O’Brien Wood is dedicated to persevering with the momentum earlier than turning the division over to Ruth Conner – at present her second-in-command – and the Buffalo Public Schools’ diet profile is certainly on the rise. For occasion, Thursday lunches throughout the district characteristic fruits or greens from New York State producers, one ingredient of the farm-to-school program blossoming because of partnerships with Eden Valley Growers, 5 Loaves Farm and Providence Farm Collective, amongst others.

Relationships with native producers corresponding to Wardynski’s meats buoyed the district throughout the pandemic, when provide chain points throughout the nation hamstrung bigger companies like Tyson Foods, the district’s rooster provider.

The diet director trumpeted the pilot program of halal-certified meals ready in accordance with Islamic regulation in 9 district faculties launched final yr. O’Brien Wood referenced Buffalo’s range of cuisines within the restaurant trade, however she stated it is necessary for college kids to study these cultures in cafeterias, too. 

O’Brien Wood’s most-recent pitches to the Buffalo School Board contain two main updates that won’t come to fruition till after her retirement: new positions and a brand new commissary.

The district has already authorized a partnership with Chefs Brigaid, a set of cooks skilled in baby diet regulation who will present oversight in all the things from recipes to programming to gear recommendation. The college system is anticipated to rent a coordinator for its farm-to-school program, which might additionally embody overseeing college gardens.







Bridget O'Brien Wood

Bridget O’Brien Wood, director of kid diet providers for the Buffalo Public Schools, helps out with the lunch service at International School 45 on Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022. 




A brand new commissary proposed throughout the road from the present manufacturing facility, at William L. Gaiter Parkway and East Delavan Avenue, may very well be prepared in three years, O’Brien Wood stated. She stated it might be a substantial improve, able to extra cook-chill preparation – primarily a strategy of preserving cooked meals for reheating – and alternatives for cooking from scratch. 

Needs in baby diet stay, nevertheless. O’Brien Wood cited a scarcity of expert labor, the continued problem of creating more healthy meals appetizing for younger college students and quirky USDA rules like how portion sizes for all ages of scholars should stay the identical.

“It’s a giant ship that is not simple to show,” she stated.

But O’Brien Wood retains coming again to a mantra she’s adopted the final 30 years. “There’s no better vocation than feeding a hungry baby,” she stated. “I owed it to the town – I did one of the best I may.”

Ben Tsujimoto might be reached at [email protected], at (716) 849-6927 or on Twitter at @Tsuj10.

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