May-June-2020-Advisor

HELPING

MAY-JUNE 2020 CEA ADVISOR 11

Stratford Teachers Answer the Call to End Hunger

Science Teacher Finds Novel Way to Help Healthcare Workers

On a regular Saturday, the parking lot at Victoria Soto Elementary School in Stratford’s south end sees some 150 families come through for a monthly food pickup from the Connecticut Food Bank. Lately, however, those numbers have nearly doubled. And the same teachers who have spent the first Saturday of every month this school year volunteering to distribute food have stepped it up to accommodate the growing number of families struggling to make ends meet. Back in September, Victoria Soto kindergarten teacher Judee McMellan spearheaded the food donation effort with the Connecticut Food Bank. Her school, which serves grades K-1, shares a campus and driveway with Stratford Academy Johnson House, for grades 2-6. Colleagues from both buildings as well as Franklin Elementary and other Stratford schools joined in the project, forming a corps of nearly 30 volunteers whose ranks also included custodial staff, administrators, family members of teachers, a board of education member, a town official, and local high school students. “My school is in a low-income neighborhood,” says McMellan, who has spent the last 37 years of her 40- year career in Stratford. “There is tremendous need in our community as well as a huge outpouring of support.” New system for new times Before the pandemic, the Connecticut Food Bank truck would set up in the school parking lot on the first Saturday of every month. Teacher volunteers came early to arrange tables on either side of the truck and prepare for the influx of families, many of whom have children at Victoria Soto or Johnson House. “The truck would be filled to the gills with fresh produce, milk, bread, and canned goods, and teachers from the various schools would fill people’s reusable bags with groceries,” explains volunteer Robin Julian. A 36-year veteran who also teaches kindergarten at Victoria Soto, Julian is vice president of the Stratford Education Association. When the pandemic hit, the food bank contacted McMellan and asked if she wanted to cancel the program. The truck would no longer be able to park and stay in place. The alternative was to come up with a way to handle distribution with social distancing restrictions. “I sent an email blast to our volunteers, and the response was overwhelming,” McMellan says. “Teachers wanted to continue. So we came up with a new game plan.” These days, the truck drops pallets of food in boxes and leaves it in the driveway. Wearing masks and gloves,

teachers and other volunteers arrive earlier than usual to set up tables. Some serve as packers, bagging up food in plastic bags donated by a local supermarket. McMellan and colleague Kathy Signore, a Victoria Soto first-grade teacher and 36-year veteran, keep track of the number of people coming through, letting cars come in a dozen at a time and providing direction on how food is being distributed. Families are required to stay in their vehicles and pop their trunks. “We have a loop system,” McMellan explains, “where several volunteers serve as distributors, packing bags of food into each car trunk and then closing the trunk so that no one has to come in contact with anyone else. We go through several pairs of gloves, and one teacher has even supplied us recently with plastic shields for our faces. This is such a successful program that couldn’t run without our teachers, who form the majority of our volunteers.” Although her asthma puts her in a higher risk category, McMellan was determined to continue helping during the pandemic. “Right now, I serve as a car monitor,” she says. “I have a clicker that counts the vehicles coming through.” No break from hunger On a recent food distribution day, 285 families turned out—a significant bump from the usual 150-170 families normally served. Enough food was distributed to feed an estimated 1,000 adults and children. It was that recognition—that the need is increasing, not abating—that led Stratford teachers to continue their volunteer efforts beyond the school year and into the summer. “We will be doing this throughout the summer months,” says McMellan. “The food bank has been giving us more food every time, because the need in our community is so great.” In addition to building camaraderie among teachers, the effort also allows them to see many of their students, if even from a safe distance. “The gratitude from their families is overwhelming,” says McMellan. “We have heard ‘thank you’ and ‘bless you’ on the way in and on the way out of the parking lot in English, Spanish, and Arabic!” “You can’t imagine what it’s like for us and for our students, not seeing each other face to face in school,” says Julian. “Seeing the looks on students’ faces warms our hearts. One of my kindergartners was practically falling out of the window last week, calling out, ‘Mrs. Julian! I miss you!’”

With schools closed and science labs standing empty, Brookfield High School science teacher Heather Biancheri realized that she—and fellow science teachers throughout the state—were sitting on a virtual gold mine of critical gloves, gowns, and other personal protective equipment in short supply at hospitals and other healthcare facilities. “I considered the amount of PPE that would be easily collectable from our school labs,” she says. “This is where I began my journey to support our community.” From schools with love “I have a personal interest in epidemiology,” says Biancheri, “but it was my honors biology students who initially notified me of this virus in early January, during our unit on the evolution and emergence of infectious disease. What impeccable timing! We tracked the spread each week, and I read the WHO situation reports almost daily.” At the end of January, when the WHO declared a global health emergency and the crisis unfolded in Italy, Biancheri realized that the U.S. would soon be in a similar predicament with overwhelmed healthcare facilities and inadequate supplies of PPE. In February, she began planning how to collect and

have been working on securing donations since March. PPE Donations for CT has mainly supplied gloves, gowns, disinfectants, masks, and surgical mask extenders, called ear savers, which help alleviate the discomfort that healthcare professionals feel after wearing face masks looped around their ears all day. The project has donated to Danbury Hospital, local nursing homes, VNAs, and healthcare facilities— private practices including both medical and dental offices. They have also sent ear savers to Yale New Haven Health and Massachusetts General Hospital and are reaching out to first responders in local communities. “Our healthcare workers are risking their lives and the lives of their families at home to keep us healthy,” says Biancheri. “We owe them the respect of being sure that they are adequately protected while they work to protect us.” 3D to the rescue Biancheri and Vivas’s most recent endeavor has been assembly, distribution, and social media promotion of Robotics and Beyond 3D-printed face shields, an initiative of Danbury Hackerspace’s Connecticut PPE Project. “One of my students, Logan White, is also using our school’s

Brookfield High School teachers Stephanie Vivas and Heather Biancheri collect PPE for their charity, PPE Donations for CT. (They note that they ensure social distancing and that the photo was taken before masks were mandated in Connecticut.)

distribute supplies. She knew she’d have to reach out to schools throughout the state—a daunting task for one person. “My students were incredibly helpful,” she said. “They collected emails for almost every public school principal in the state of Connecticut.” In March, she submitted a formal proposal and collection plan to CEA President Jeff Leake. “He was very supportive and promptly presented my proposal to the Connecticut State Department of Education. They immediately adopted my initiative—PPE Donations for CT—and within 24 hours, a formalized protocol was in place and the collection process was online.” Biancheri’s friend and colleague Stephanie Vivas, who teaches biology and zoology at Brookfield High School, joined in her project after the state adopted the public school PPE collection, and they

3D printers and donated filament to make ear savers,” says Biancheri. “I just submitted a grant to the Brookfield Education Foundation to secure more printers and filament, which will allow Logan to increase productivity now and for a potential second wave of COVID-19 as well as expand his printing to include face shields. We are fortunate to work in a school that has the resources to support this type of work and to have such a hard-working and compassionate student!” “Having our students and communities involved is amazing,” says Vivas, “because that’s what we ultimately want from our students—to be informed and active community members who are a positive influence in our world. Small actions can lead to big impacts, and it’s truly a wonderful experience to know we are a part of this effort.”

Teachers and their fellow volunteers pose on a recent Saturday morning before preparing to distribute food to the growing number of families struggling to make ends meet.