Community effort preserves school food during extended Vernon outage

A group of volunteers from local fire departments, the Florida Air National Guard, and school food service partners helped save an estimated two weeks’ worth of refrigerated and frozen food from Vernon schools during an extended power outage following Hurricane Isaias.

According to the Greenhead Volunteer Fire Department, 20 individuals came together on short notice to move food from Vernon Middle School and Vernon Elementary School before it could spoil.

The effort included six employees, family members, and friends associated with the schools’ food service provider; eight firefighters from Greenhead, Wausau, and Sunny Hills fire departments; and six Airmen from the 290th Joint Communications Support Squadron, a Florida Air National Guard unit based at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.

Greenhead Volunteer Fire Department officials said the volunteers “sprang into action with zero notice” to assist school officials with relocating food supplies during the outage.

Food was transferred to Vernon High School, the Washington County School District’s commodity storage facility in Chipley, and Kate Smith Elementary School. In total, crews moved approximately two and a half loads in the school district’s box truck and one full pickup truck load.

School officials estimated that the effort preserved roughly two weeks’ worth of food supplies. Only about one day’s worth of food, consisting primarily of dairy products, had to be discarded.

The operation was carried out while the Vernon Volunteer Fire Department was heavily involved in operating Washington County’s Point of Distribution alongside the Florida National Guard, prompting neighboring departments to assist with the food recovery effort.