Calipari, Mitchell, others helping feed Fayette school students amid coronavirus shutdown

On a day when UK Men’s Basketball Coach John Calipari once hoped to spend coaching the Cats in the Elite Eight, he was instead helping deliver food bags to Fayette school families Friday morning, Superintendent Manny Caulk said in a message to families.

The Calipari Foundation is partnering with Kroger and Fayette County Public Schools to provide $40,000 in Kroger gift cards each week schools are closed — a gift that will help feed 400 families a week, Caulk said.

“My spirit is renewed,” Caulk said in a Friday night statement as he described several donations and acts of kindness during the coronavirus school shutdown.

Given the option to stay home, district child nutrition employees volunteered to come in and prepare free meals for children who rely on eating at school, he said.

On the heels of an initial gift of $26,400, the Jenna and Matthew Mitchell Foundation at Blue Grass Community Foundation has pledged an additional $105,600 to provide food, hygiene products, and cleaning supplies to families in need while schools are closed, Caulk said. Matthew Mitchell is UK’s women’s basketball coach.

Fayette school Family Resource and Youth Service Center Coordinators assembled thousands of boxes of food and essential supplies, and delivered them to the doorsteps of families in need.

Employees in the district’s technical centers, medical academies and science labs donated more than 44,000 pieces of personal protection equipment including face masks and shields, N95 respirators, isolation gowns, gloves, and more to the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department for distribution to medical providers in our community.

And warehouse employees have volunteered to drive trucks to pick up medical supplies in other communities.

“When we shared the disappointing news that we could no longer deliver meals via school bus, community partners including the United Way of the Bluegrass, YMCA, Keeneland, Raising Canes, Seasons Catering, Papa John’s, and Devine Carama reached out to offer support,” Caulk said.

Caulk said in the span of two weeks, Fayette County Public Schools has reinvented the way it delivered services to students and families, sustained essential operations, provided food and essentials for vulnerable children and families, supported other community agencies with equipment and supplies, and taken steps to ensure the district can hit the ground running with Non-Traditional Instruction on April 6.

“I was already convinced that this is the greatest district I’ve ever had the honor to serve, but I have been absolutely blown away by the talent and commitment demonstrated by our employees in the face of this challenge,” Caulk said. “Education has often been called ‘the difference between hope and despair.’ At no other time in our history have those words been more true.”

Caulk said school district officials do not know how long COVID-19 will require a new normal.

“But we are committed to be a source of consistency and hope in an uncertain world. While efforts to contain this virus force us to be physically apart, we will do everything we can to make distance learning feel a little bit closer, “ he said.

Caulk echoes the Kentucky Department of Education’s current three-fold focus of Educate, Feed and Support.

The first priority is ensuring children receive their education through Kentucky’s Non-Traditional Instruction (NTI) Program.

“We already are working to share resources and best practices that will help keep our state’s public school children learning regardless of where they are sitting, “ said Interim Kentucky Education Commissioner Kevin Brown.

The state is assisting districts in making sure children continue to be fed breakfast and lunch when school buildings are closed. In Kentucky, where almost 400,000 public school students were considered economically disadvantaged during the 2018-2019 school year, the meals matter, Brown said.

The state is working closely with the governor’s office, the legislature and the U.S. Department of Education to make sure no students, educators, schools or districts are hurt by school closures, Brown said.

One of the questions they are working on right now is what is going to happen with the Class of 2020.

Brown said it is bitterly disappointing for seniors to know that the rights of passage that they have been looking forward to for at least a dozen years — such as senior trips, prom and graduation ceremonies — can’t happen right now.

A new Education Continuation Task Force will ensure students who were on track can graduate and will decide what the grading system will look like for NTI work, Brown said.

This story was originally published March 28, 2020 at 8:21 AM.