In 1959, an average of 566 Clarke Community school students were served hot lunches each day. Students from first grade through junior high and high school took part in the program. The hot lunches were served in the cafeteria of the East Ward school building. Some students took sack lunches to school, went home for lunch, uptown to a restaurant or bought lunch at The Little Store by the high school.
The cost of one week’s lunches was $1.25 or 25 cents a day. Tickets were purchased on Friday morning so the cooks would know how many students to plan to serve the next week. Half-pints of milk were served at 10 a.m. each morning and with lunch. A sample of the meals served were chili dogs, buttered corn, pineapple upside-down cake, milk and water.
The hot lunch program received surplus commodities from the government. They were butter, cheese, dry milk, dry eggs, flour, corn meal, green beans, cherries, peas, apricots, peaches, date pieces and peanut butter. The items didn’t cost anything except the expense of storage. One item not received was meat, which was rather expensive.
Two buses transported junior high and high school students to East Elementary. The cost of transportation was 15 cents a mile and paid by the district. The last lunches were finished at 12:30 p.m. The cooks worked until around 2:30 or 3 p.m. starting preparations for the next day’s menu. Potatoes, cheese and cabbage are some of the foods they started to prepare early. Three elementary students helped in the lunch room. They wiped off tables, scraped plates and helped wash dishes.
The cooks started serving lunch at 11:15 a.m. each morning. First and second graders were served first. Their lunches were put on the table for them. The rest of the students went through the serving line. A bread and butter sandwish was put on every plate with the lunch. Sometimes an extra sandwich was served. Some students paid for an extra carton of milk.
When classes started in the new high school in the fall of 1961, the cooks preparing and serving the thousands of meals to students in the Osceola school buildings were Opal Schaffer, Mamie Boor, Clara Mae Airy, Carrie Davenport, Jettie Martin, Maxine Barger, Pauline Patterson, Linna Huskill, Vera Cornelison and Jesse Atkinson. Lena Anderson and Milre Lewis served lunch at Weldon School and Fern Boyles and Mary Lou Mason served lunch for Woodburn School.