By China Cassidy Just a few weeks after students at the Holbrook Unified School District began what was supposed to be a week-long spring break, Arizona schools closed due to executive orders surrounding COVID-19. For one reason or another, many families depend on the two meals provided daily by their schools. Although the options were extremely limited that did not stop the district from making sure more than 95,000 meals were delivered to the community’s youth despite regular operations being shut down. Throughout the year, HUSD hosts a summer food program where all children under the age of 18 can go to select locations and eat both breakfast and lunch at no cost during the schools’ off-periods. Generally, the students would be welcomed to designated campus cafeterias or parks where they can meet with their peers for both breakfast and lunch. After Governor Doug Ducey’s executive order was given prohibiting large gatherings, HUSD was given permission to pre-pack the meals and allow families to pick them up at designated locations. HUSD’s Director of Food Services Ray McLaws, explained, “The USDA came out and gave us a waiver to have non-congregational meetings, so we’re allowed to give them a grab-and-go bag they can take home with them.” Families come to locations set up to ensure social distancing practices while picking up their food. McLaws said, “We take care of one family at a time as they come up. Most all of our services are drive through and either the driver gets out of the car and comes to our spot and we hand everything to the driver or the kids will walk up. Some of our stops, we take a table and hand the meals out over the table so there’s at least a tables distance between us and the kids or the parents that are picking up.” Although they only deliver twice a week, staff is working throughout the week to prepare the grab-and-go meals. The director explained, “We do our prep two days a week, then we stuff the bags two days a week, then they deliver them. We prep Tuesday and Wednesday for Thursday’s delivery and prep Thursday and Friday for Monday’s delivery. Right now, we’re serving meals from Monday through Saturday. The only day we’re not serving ones for is Sunday. It’s free breakfasts and free lunches for those days of the week.” With more than 1,500 square miles to cover to ensure that everyone in need of the meals has access to them, the district enlisted the help of employees from various departments to assist them on their mission. McLaws explained, “We’re running seven routes in town and seven routes on the reservation. We’re using the district bus drivers, and some of the aides are helping to serve, drive and deliver.” Because there are families that come from other districts as well, they try to project what they’ll need for the next delivery and then add extra so newcomers are not turned away. McLaws explained, “We have an estimate of what we’ve used before in the past so we always try to prepare and have a couple extra in case new people show up being as it is not limited to our students in our school district, its limited to whoever is there under the age 0-18.” The district will continue delivering meals until Friday, May 22. Beginning Tuesday, May 26, following Memorial Day, they will no longer be doing deliveries and will return to the original drive through locations. McLaws explained, “The routes are ending next Friday after school is supposed to be out and then we’ll go to our traditional serving sites where we’ll still do it drive through. So, we’ll do one here at the high school, one at Hunt Park, one at Lizitsky Park, one at Indian Wells Elementary and we’re trying to get one going at the White Cone Chapter (House). So that’s available until June 30. On July 1 we have to go back to the traditional (where) you have to stay for 30 minutes and consume your meal on-site.” With more than 92,000 meals delivered as of May 11, McLaws projected they’d end somewhere near 95,000 by the end of the week.