{"id":5623,"date":"2016-06-10T16:25:58","date_gmt":"2016-06-10T21:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/?p=5623"},"modified":"2020-05-27T10:26:37","modified_gmt":"2020-05-27T15:26:37","slug":"teresa-harwell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/oral-history-project\/teresa-harwell\/","title":{"rendered":"Teresa Harwell"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/HarwellWEB-1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-6426\" src=\"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/HarwellWEB-1-250x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"216\" height=\"259\" srcset=\"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/HarwellWEB-1-250x300.jpg 250w, https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/HarwellWEB-1-768x922.jpg 768w, https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/HarwellWEB-1-853x1024.jpg 853w, https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/HarwellWEB-1.jpg 1000w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 216px) 100vw, 216px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Interviewee<\/strong>: Teresa Harwell<\/p>\n<p><strong>Interviewer<\/strong>: Jeffrey Boyce<\/p>\n<p><strong>Date<\/strong>: February 17, 2016<\/p>\n<p><strong>Location: <\/strong>Anchorage, Alaska<\/p>\n<p><strong>Description<\/strong>: Teresa Harwell is a school food service director in Alaska.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"video-shortcode\"><iframe title=\"Teresa Harwell\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/228846790?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><strong>Jeffrey Boyce<\/strong>: I\u2019m Jeffrey Boyce and it is February 17, 2016, and I\u2019m here in Anchorage, Alaska, at the BP Energy Center for the Alaska SNA conference, and I\u2019m speaking with Teresa Harwell. Welcome Teresa and thanks for taking the time to talk with me.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Teresa Harwell<\/strong>: Thanks.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Could we begin by you telling me a little bit about yourself, where you were born, where you grew up?<\/p>\n<p><strong>TH<\/strong>: I was born in California and grew up in Northern California, a little town called Grass Valley, which is about an hour from Sacramento. And I moved up to Alaska in 1983 and we\u2019ve been here ever since. I didn\u2019t start working for the school district until like 1992, and before then I was doing noon duty helping out my kid\u2019s classroom. We had a position come open in the cafeteria at the elementary school, and it seemed like we had a substitute after substitute after substitute, and I was doing noon duty so I called the lady who used to work there, and I said, \u201cDoesn\u2019t anybody want to do this job?\u201d That\u2019s all it took. So then I started working for school nutrition in \u201992 and I went through all the levels from elementary to high school to back to middle school and then back to high school supervising them, and am now a coordinator for the high schools and some elementary schools.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Before we get into that could you tell me your earliest recollections of child nutrition programs? Was there a program in California in elementary school?<\/p>\n<p><strong>TH<\/strong>: Actually the elementary school I was at \u2013 it was a little town \u2013 and we didn\u2019t have a program, the National School Lunch Program or anything like that. The only thing we had was hotdogs, that was it, once a week. Other than that is was sack lunches that you brought from home.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: OK. Did you do that all the way through high school?<\/p>\n<p><strong>TH<\/strong>: No. Once I got into high school they had a bigger cafeteria. There was like one high school in the whole county where we lived, so everybody went there. And they had a bigger cafeteria, but I don\u2019t ever recall an official lunch program. It was mostly point of service. Like we have the National School Lunch Program now, I don\u2019t know if they had it then.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Do you remember what some of the menu items were?<\/p>\n<p><strong>TH<\/strong>: Sure, things like burritos and milkshakes and french fries. It was all stuff that teenagers would buy, that we can\u2019t serve anymore.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: And then after high school what did you do?<\/p>\n<p><strong>TH<\/strong>: Then I got married. I had two daughters and my youngest one was only eleven months old when we moved to Alaska. We moved to Anchorage. My husband came up here working for the newspaper and we\u2019ve been here ever since.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: OK. You said you questioned why there was so many turnovers in the position and that\u2019s how you got into child nutrition?<\/p>\n<p><strong>TH<\/strong>: Yea! It was like our cafeteria managers where my daughters went to school \u2013 there was never a permanent person in the position so I called the lady that used to be the \u201clunch lady\u201d and I said, \u201cWhat\u2019s the matter? Doesn\u2019t anybody want to do this? How hard could this job be?\u201d And so I got into it. I\u2019ve enjoyed it. I love the kids, and I worked in the elementary school level alone for like eleven years before I changed to the upper secondary level.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: What\u2019s a typical day like for you, or is there such an animal?<\/p>\n<p><strong>TH<\/strong>: OH, there is no typical day. Now I supervise all of the high schools in Anchorage in the cafeterias, and two of them went CEP a couple of years ago.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: And that is?<\/p>\n<p><strong>TH<\/strong>: The Community Eligibility Provision. At East High School they are now serving almost a thousand kids every morning for breakfast, and almost 1,200 for lunch, all in one lunch period.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Wow.<\/p>\n<p><strong>TH<\/strong>: Yea, it\u2019s just amazing. So I &#8211; anywhere from employee issues to checking over, making sure they\u2019re doing their paperwork right. I also have some elementary schools I supervise. And we have afterschool programs at the high school also. So that\u2019s three meals a day that the kids are getting at two of our high schools that I go in and make sure that everything\u2019s operating right.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Is there anything unique about Alaska in regard to child nutrition programs?<\/p>\n<p><strong>TH<\/strong>: Not being able to get fresh fruits and vegetables, at least not at a really good price; everything\u2019s so much more expensive because we have to have everything shipped here. Bananas come in and they\u2019re green, green, green. They gas them and you hope that they will be ready to serve. So I would say that the biggest thing is just getting good fruits and vegetables up here. A lot of kids, because we don\u2019t have them available as much, they don\u2019t eat them as much either, so &#8211;<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: It\u2019s not a food they\u2019re familiar with?<\/p>\n<p><strong>TH<\/strong>: No, because they don\u2019t get that all the time. I grew up in California where we had a garden out in our back yard \u2013 go out and pull a tomato right off the vine and eat it \u2013 and we don\u2019t get that here.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: That\u2019s a shame. What are some of the biggest challenges other than the transportation issue you face?<\/p>\n<p><strong>TH<\/strong>: Just getting kids to want to try new things. There are a lot of kids that with the way our economy is now they just don\u2019t have the money available, and so even getting them to know it\u2019s there. We have something to offer. Try something new. With the regulations we have they\u2019re just like \u201cI don\u2019t want to eat that. It\u2019s not white bread.\u201d So, getting kids to try new things; once they get into the habit of eating something it\u2019s like \u201cWow, that isn\u2019t so bad.\u201d We\u2019ve seen it with the new regulations. Kids are starting \u2013 our numbers are picking back up. So kids are trying things. Now if we could just get them to eat sweet potatoes. That\u2019s been a really difficult one.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Sweet potatoes?<\/p>\n<p><strong>TH<\/strong>: Yea, a lot of kids don\u2019t want &#8211; high school especially \u2013 you have to have that orange vegetable in there, and they just don\u2019t want them. We\u2019ve tried tots and that\u2019s been real difficult, to get them to eat those sweet potatoes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Is it just a product they\u2019re not familiar with?<\/p>\n<p><strong>TH<\/strong>: Yea, sure. I mean in Alaska who grows sweet potatoes? Not very many people. So if they were from the South, that was something that they ate down there. I didn\u2019t really grow up much on sweet potatoes.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: I love sweet potatoes. I\u2019m from the South.<\/p>\n<p><strong>TH<\/strong>: Yea. We had them at Thanksgiving time. I never ate them. We just brought on a new lattice fry at the high schools, and I had to cover as a manager that day, because we didn\u2019t have a manager for one of our schools, so I went in there and I was cooking up these sweet potatoes, a brand new product, and thinking \u201cOh gosh, I don\u2019t like sweet potatoes,\u201d but they were good. I tried them and they were good. So when you just get the kids to try them.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: What other changes have you seen in the profession over the years?<\/p>\n<p><strong>TH<\/strong>: Just trying to get the consistency of a good work force, people to come in that really want to come in and help take care of the kids. Sometimes it\u2019s not being able to find people. We have at the Anchorage School District a lot of jobs that are open, yet we can\u2019t get them filled. We\u2019ve had manager positions open all year. And so getting qualified people in to work for us has been real difficult.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: And why do you think that is?<\/p>\n<p><strong>TH<\/strong>: I\u2019m not sure. Part of it is probably they\u2019re not full-time, and everybody needs benefits. Everybody wants to get a job where they can go somewhere, and it just takes so much time if you can\u2019t just get into a position that offers benefits. But it\u2019s such an important position. It\u2019s so important. These kids need to eat. We need people that can safely prepare our foods and feed our kids, and unfortunately they aren\u2019t those jobs that pay those benefits.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: What would you say has been your most significant contribution so far to the field?<\/p>\n<p><strong>TH<\/strong>: Just being out there. I love working with people, being able to help share the knowledge I\u2019ve had over the years, and getting other people to come in and do the job too, and helping train them, and just working with them. I have more fun going in and stepping in and helping with my managers or whatever when I go into school. It\u2019s stuff that I don\u2019t get to do anymore as much, but I love doing it. I go in and I\u2019m right there to help pick up that food and scoop up with the rest of them, and anything else that it goes with. It\u2019s just so amazing to see kids, even on Facebook, from back in \u201992 when I started. Just last year I had one girl that said, \u201cWeren\u2019t you my lunch lady?\u201d She got on Facebook and saw my name. So it was kind of cool to be able to say, \u201cHey. What are you doing with your life?\u201d But just the impact that you make on kids that you don\u2019t think; you walk in the grocery store and they grab you and say, \u201cMom, Mom, this is my lunch lady!\u201d It\u2019s kind of cool the impression you leave on kids, that you think you have nothing and you\u2019re just there making their lunch. It\u2019s like it\u2019s not important, but they remember. Years later they come back and say, \u201cWow, I remember you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Any other special stories about children you\u2019ve served or people you\u2019ve worked with over your career?<\/p>\n<p><strong>TH<\/strong>: Yes. There currently working in one of my high schools that I supervise, we probably have one of the oldest school nutrition workers probably in the state. She\u2019s eighty-nine years old, or just about. She\u2019ll be eighty-nine in April. They actually did a news article on her. One of the news crews came out last year on her eighty-eighth birthday and interviewed her. And she\u2019s just this cute little old lady, and it was just so funny. One day when I went to talk to her after her interview, and I said, because on her interview I hear she said, \u201cOh, I was just such a troublemaker.\u201d And I said, \u201cLiz, what do you mean you were a troublemaker?\u201d She goes, \u201cI used to be a tomboy. I used to climb trees and\u2026\u201d But she cuts all of our Subway bread at East High School every day, two to three hundred loaves that she has to slice, and at eighty-nine she still wants to work for us. It\u2019s just amazing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: What advice would you give someone who was considering child nutrition as a profession today?<\/p>\n<p><strong>TH:<\/strong> That it\u2019s so beneficial. You may not think you\u2019re important, but you are. You make such an impact on these kids\u2019 lives. Some of them, this is the food they get for the day. They may not have much at home. You know, we hear stories about over the weekends when they\u2019re not in school, they get breakfast, lunch, and then some schools dinner now, and they go home weekends there\u2019s nothing. So it\u2019s really important to be a good role model so they can become a really good person as they grow as a citizen of this country, and that you\u2019re important and they\u2019re important, and make them feel important. I love my job. I don\u2019t know what else I would want to do. This has always been really good.<\/p>\n<p><strong>JB<\/strong>: Thank you for taking the time today.<\/p>\n<p><strong>TH<\/strong>: Thank you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; Interviewee: Teresa Harwell Interviewer: Jeffrey Boyce Date: February 17, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,14],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5623"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5623"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12540,"href":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5623\/revisions\/12540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theicn.org\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}