Feeding our children: Meet Cat Vasquez, child nutrition director at the Grand County School District

Last week was National School Lunch Week, so we took a minute to get to know the new lunch lady in town, Cat Vasquez. Vasquez is the child nutrition director at the Grand County School District, and she started in the spring. 

Vasquez worked in geriatric food service and healthcare for 20 years, but was feeling burnt-out and was looking for a change. The change from serving the elderly to serving children comes with new things to learn, such as a new organization system—but Vasquez’s previous experience primes her for much of the work in her new role, such as navigating government funding programs. 

Vasquez said she’s still playing “catch-up,” but she has made some notable changes since joining the district in July. 

For example, she’s trying to cut down on waste by buying reusable trays with the Margaret L. Hopkin Middle School Thunderbird logo instead of styrofoam at the middle school. She cleaned out the cafeteria pantries and is hoping to make more food by hand. 

The goal is to have everything made from “scratch or speed scratch,” she said, and use the best quality of food, with everything having the standard Child Nutrition Label on it—Child Nutrition labels are part of a U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Nutrition Service program. 

Sourcing the ingredients is one puzzle. 

Some of the food had already been purchased prior to Vasquez’s start: a recent grant bought 1,500 pounds of fresh, farm-raised ground beef from Colorado. Some food is required to be sourced from the government: commodity items like canned foods, hamburgers, turkey, and cheese. 

All these ingredients all have to add up to a varied, rotating menu. Each student has three options at each meal, including a fruit, a vegetable, and an entree. Some entrees are the classics—sloppy joes, mashed potatoes and gravy, or pancakes. There’s a sort of routine too: Monday is a burger or hot dog, Tuesday is Mexican, Wednesday is Italian or Chinese, Thursday is some type of chicken dish, and pizza is served on Fridays. 

While the program is looking for one more staff member at the elementary school, Vasquez is thankful for the two managers on staff: Sarah Dawson works at Helen M. Knight Elementary School, and Sherri Costanza works at the middle school and high school. HMK serves about 430 students a week;  MLK and GCHS combined serve about 200 students a week. 

Vasquez hopes that the kids report that the food looks and tastes better this year, and that more kids start eating school lunches. That would allow her to secure more funding to be able to be more flexible with what she serves.

 “It just takes time,” she said of the changes she hopes to see. 

A challenge to that is that many kids are picky eaters, and she says that starts at home and is difficult to change. 

“It takes a village,” she said, especially in a small town. 

While it’s a lot to learn and a lot to manage, Vasquez has some big dreams for the lunch program. She’s partnering with local bakeries like the Donut Shop and is looking for more bakeries to serve homemade goods. She also hopes to have a free farmers market with fresh produce that families can take home. Another big idea is to purchase a food truck to be more mobile in delivering the food. Some programs offer dinner for families as well, and she is researching how to bring a program like that in. 

“I want Grand County to be able to continue feeding the kids,” she said. “For some kids, this is their only meal, and that is sad. It needs to start here, because we are the biggest feeder of children.”

It’s a complex recipe to serve all the kids in town, but Vasquez is sure of one thing, she said—the secret ingredient is “love.”