BALTIMORE — As the sun fills the morning sky and students make their way to class at Patterson High School, they are greeted by cafeteria manager Angelia Harris, cheerfully spreading the word about a free breakfast.
"Come get some breakfast, hi honey!" she shouts to a student.
"We got juice, we got fruit, we got anything you like!"
She's standing outside of the Baltimore City Public Schools' Str/EATs Cafe food truck, which on this particular morning is parked outside of Patterson High.
"All it takes is a smile and have a nice day, good morning beautiful, they come to you with love and the love of food is in everyone," Harris said.
The food truck rolled out last year, according to Cynthia Shey, a manager with Food and Nutrition services in the school district. She said there are a couple of purposes for the truck, including emergency services.
"If a school is shut down, we’re able to dispatch the food truck, prepare meals at a different school site and bring those meals to the school that’s shut down even though students aren’t in the building."
The school system will put out the word on social media that the Str/EATs Cafe food truck is serving free food to those students who are doing virtual learning when their school unexpectedly shuts down.
"We’ll get a group of students that will come during their lunch break on Zoom," Shey said.
The other mission behind the food truck is to reach more high school students.
"Participation in school meals tends to drop the older kids get," Shey said. "If you’re in high school, the cafeteria is just not a very cool place to be. One of the things we could do with the food truck is make it a little cooler."
The school system does offer free breakfast, lunch and dinner to students and Shey said close to 80,000 meals a day are served. She says the food truck can meet more students where they are and ensure they're getting healthy meals throughout the day.
"The food truck can also have breakfast after the bell, so since students are coming from all over the city to get to their high school, it's not always at a reliable time or exactly when school starts. The food truck can extend the hours of breakfast service to those students," she said.
Right now, the food truck is in limited operation as the school system looks to hire more drivers. Shey said they hope to roll it out four days a week during the summer to serve free breakfast and lunch. Once that happens, the school system will post the food truck's schedule and location on its website and social media pages.
