Every day, hundreds of hungry Amador Valley students fill the lunch lines. Hours before the rush, a team works behind the scenes, wrapping, packaging, and preparing freshly made food.
“To feed the students, if they like the food, that’s a reward. We put one hundred percent into whatever we make. We want to make the food look good, taste good, and if [the students] like it, that’s a reward, it makes me happy,” said Amador Valley Child Nutrition Services (CNS) worker Anh Pham.
Inspiring career journeys
Rena Priya Dodi started her career as a substitute teacher. She later discovered a part-time job as a lunch worker. Now, Dodi gets to explore her love for food while still working at school.
“I always have liked watching, making food, or, you know, at least watching other people doing food stuff, even on the internet. So it’s nice to do something which you like, and then the day goes fast,” said Amador Valley CNS worker Dodi.
Pham found the road to PUSD CNS in 2005 when her son went to Donlon Elementary School. She worked as a lunch lady in multiple different Pleasanton schools, finding that she enjoys working in high schools the most.
“I started working at the elementary schools. After a month, I started to get bored because elementary is very slow. They only prepare two things. Then I [went] to Foothill [and I worked at] Amador at the same time. I worked in production [so] I cooked for the whole district…it was different, because like we prepared for every school,” said Pham.
Always one step ahead
While most students are sound asleep, lunch workers like Pham get to school as early as 6:30 a.m. to begin preparing food.
“We usually plan what we will make about a day or an hour ahead, and we pull whatever we need for the next day. So in the morning, we come in and already know what to do, we already know what to serve,” said Pham.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, Amador Valley has about 2,574 students. While not every student eats school lunch, Dodi and Pham still note how challenging the task is. “The thing is, we’re kind of short [on] people, which is a harder thing. Like, no matter how fast [we] are, we are short like two, three people. So I have to work [harder]. [It’s] kind of a long day,” said Pham.
