{"id":11504,"date":"2020-03-19T15:30:22","date_gmt":"2020-03-19T15:30:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/state.nokidhungry.org\/montana\/?p=11504"},"modified":"2020-03-19T16:22:43","modified_gmt":"2020-03-19T16:22:43","slug":"browning-works-together-to-feed-kids-during-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/state.nokidhungry.org\/montana\/2020\/03\/19\/browning-works-together-to-feed-kids-during-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Browning Works Together to Feed Kids during COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Article by Holly Michels at the Helena Independent Record<\/a><\/em><\/p>

BROWNING<\/strong> \u2014 The sound of school bus horns carried on the wind through the neighborhoods in and around this small rural town on the eastern edge of Glacier National Park, a clarion call to the community\u2019s children and families that breakfast was ready.<\/p>

\u201cI know they have kids here, I just gotta wake them up,\u201d said Nicklo Crossguns between beeps as her school bus idled outside a home. \u201cCome and get your breakfast!\u201d<\/p>

Crossguns, a school bus driver, was making her regular circuit Tuesday morning as the warming sun of a bluebird day barely made a dent in the deep snowdrifts along her route. Normally 80 kids, three to a seat, fill her bus. But this day it was all but empty, except two front seats\u00a0\u2014 one carrying a box full of brown-bagged lunches and the other a crate of kid-size milk cartons.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\"\"
Nicklo Crossguns delivers sack breakfasts to two young boys Tuesday morning when she could not drive her bus down their driveway without it getting stuck in the snow. THOM BRIDGE, Independent Record<\/em><\/h5>
\u00a0<\/em><\/div>

On the second day into a\u00a0minimum two-week school shutdown ordered by Montana Gov. Steve Bullock<\/a>, an\u00a0extraordinary measure meant to stave off as much as possible the spread of the coronavirus in t<\/a>he state, Crossguns turned from child-transporter to meal-deliverer, moving block to block watching small hands pull back window curtains and familiar faces peer outside at the sound of her yellow bus.<\/p>

Districts around the state are adapting to feed the children who depend on their school for much more than an education. A waiver from the USDA allowed schools in the state to transition to their summer meal programs<\/a>, offering grab-and-go options to keep students from gathering in a time of social distancing.<\/p><\/div><\/div>

Stephanie Blackman, who normally cooks for children at Browning Elementary, knows well what a meal can mean to her students.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

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School cook Stephanie Blackman inventories the refrigerator at Browning Elementary School on Tuesday morning. Blackman says the school is well supplied with food to distribute while school is closed for the foreseeable future. THOM BRIDGE, Independent Record<\/em><\/h5>
\u00a0<\/em><\/div><\/div>

\u201cWhat I keep in my mind is a child who came in once and said, \u2018I\u2019m so glad it\u2019s Monday. I didn\u2019t eat all weekend,\u2019\u201d Blackman said.<\/p>

Browning Public Schools are keeping children fed and providing certainty in an unsettled time through a volunteer force of school employees on leave from their jobs, like Crossguns and Blackman, and community members who are ready to work as long as needed to get meals to kids.<\/p>

Blackman filled brown paper sacks with warm soft pretzels, cheese, hard-boiled eggs and bananas in the empty school cafeteria, a radio pumping out upbeat music as she worked in the dark because the door to where the light switch is located was locked.<\/p>

Finding volunteers has been a bit of a challenge as families adapt to children being out of school and try to follow social-distancing guidelines, but that didn\u2019t deter Blackman and her crew.<\/p>

\u201cWe\u2019ll get it done,\u201d she said.<\/p><\/div><\/div>

By 8:30 a.m. they\u2019d made 300 breakfasts, then turned around to put together another 300 lunches for the students who would normally be filling the seats at the long lunch tables Blackman converted to a work station.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p><\/div><\/div>

\"\"
Laura Hall, left, and Ashley Blackman bag 300 sack breakfasts Tuesday morning at Browning Elementary School in Browning, Montana. THOM BRIDGE, Independent Record<\/em><\/h5>
\u00a0<\/em><\/div>

The process is not new for Blackman, who honed this skill during the 2019 blizzard that covered Browning in 4 feet of snow.<\/p>

\u201cWe\u2019ve served a lot of sack lunches and we\u2019ve made a lot,\u201d she said.<\/p>

Volunteer Laura Hall, who also works at the school, said the community has come together before and knows how to take care of each other.<\/p>

\u201cIn my experience we\u2019ve always been having each other\u2019s backs,\u201d Hall said. \u201cWhen you deal with a crisis, you help each other. It\u2019s natural. Our kids are going to be fed and we\u2019re going to feed them.\u201d<\/p>

This time, though, a pump bottle of hand sanitizer placed prominent at the end of the lunch table hammered home the message that dealing with a pandemic feels a little different.<\/p>

Across the street at Napi Elementary, Philip Sure Chief was 200 ham-and-cheese sandwiches through the 500 he needed to assemble.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\"\"
Philip Sure Chief prepares hundreds of sandwiches Tuesday morning at Napi Elementary School in Browning, Montana. THOM BRIDGE, Independent Record<\/em><\/h5>
\u00a0<\/em><\/div><\/div>

Sure Chief knows firsthand kids are struggling to navigate an uprooted schedule.<\/p>

\u201cThey\u2019re already bored out of their minds,\u201d he said of his own children, ages 14, 10 and 6. His oldest, a freshman in high school, was looking forward to a track season that might not happen. It\u2019s hard to explain to the youngest why visits with friends are off the table, while his middle daughter has been FaceTiming her friends.<\/p><\/div><\/div>

***<\/p>

It took just shy<\/strong>\u00a0of an hour for Crossguns to distribute her 30 meals, including the 7-mile drive to Starr School.<\/p>

\u201cWe took routes yesterday that we know and it worked well. We know where the kids are,\u201d Crossguns said. \u201cWe\u2019re pioneering it. Yesterday I had kids saying, \u2018My bus driver\u2019s here!\u2019 They were all happy.\u201d<\/p>

Students and their families found out about the program through a mix of posts on Facebook, the Browning Public Schools’ website and the benefit of living in a small town where everybody knows everybody. Throw in Crossguns\u2019 cheerful honking and one boisterous pup who howled along, and people got the word.<\/p>

Cherie Bear Medicine came at the sound of the bus to collect meals for her four grandchildren. She heard about the deliveries on Facebook.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\"\"
Nicklo Crossguns, left, laughs with Cherie Bear Medicine Tuesday morning on her route distributing sack breakfasts to residences outside Browning. Bear Medicine is a grandmother of four who is watching the children during the school shutdown due to coronavirus. THOM BRIDGE, Independent Record<\/em><\/h5>
\u00a0<\/em><\/div><\/div>

\u201cI appreciate it, it helps a lot,\u201d Bear Medicine said. She\u2019s trying to keep her grandchildren occupied while following social distancing recommendations. \u201cWe just go with the flow.\u201d<\/p>

A photo of one of Crossguns\u2019 daughters, a senior in high school, hangs above the windshield visor on the bus. The daughter was on the basketball team and played in the state tournament in Billings until it was canceled just before the finals.<\/p><\/div><\/div>

Though Browning was playing for third place, Crossguns said her daughter \u201cstill thought she\u2019d get one more game.\u201d<\/p>

***<\/p>

Generally, people<\/strong> in Browning, which doesn\u2019t have a diagnosed COVID-19 case yet as Montana announced more cases within the state’s borders Wednesday, are taking the precautions seriously. Like other communities around Montana, the Blackfeet Tribe issued orders closing bars, following recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about limiting gatherings of people, and urged restaurants to move to take-out or delivery only. The tribe also authorized leave for its employees to be able to adapt to students out of school and put into place a curfew, among other measures to prevent spread when the virus is assumed to arrive in this remote town.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p>

\"\"
School cooks and volunteers bag 500 breakfasts and lunches Tuesday morning at Napi Elementary School in Browning, Montana. THOM BRIDGE, Independent Record<\/em><\/h5>
\u00a0<\/em><\/div><\/div>

Some think that might not happen until the summer, when people generally flock to this part of the world in awe of the Rocky Mountain Front and Glacier National Park.<\/p>

\u201cI think now we\u2019re pretty isolated, but come summertime we\u2019re not,\u201d Sure Chief said. \u201cIt\u2019ll probably get here through tourists.\u201d<\/p>

Still, people are being cautious. Anyone who was at the state high school basketball tournament in Billings wasn\u2019t allowed to help package lunches. The senior meal program, which encouraged congregating, moved to grab-and-go options and home delivery. Also, on Bullock\u2019s order, the nursing home was closed to visitors.<\/p>

\u00a0<\/p><\/div>

\"\"
As a safety measure, administrators with the Blackfeet Community Hospital have closed this entrance to direct people through the emergency entrance where they are screened for coronavirus before entering the facility.\u00a0THOM BRIDGE, Independent Record<\/em><\/h5>
\u00a0<\/div><\/div><\/div>

All but one entrance at the Blackfeet Community Hospital was closed to the public Tuesday. Employees screened anyone entering for symptoms and asked about their travel history. Hospital employees and administrators were not allowed to talk to reporters without permission from Indian Health Service’s headquarters.<\/p>

James McNeely, the public information officer for the Blackfeet Tribe, said the tribe is confident in the hospital’s ability to respond to the community’s needs. Administrators have been working with the tribal and Glacier County officials to implement a disaster preparedness plan.<\/p>

\u201cWe\u2019re going to get through it as a tribe, as a community, as a nation, as a human race, because we all have to work together,\u201d McNeely said.<\/p><\/div><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Article by Holly Michels at the Helena Independent Record BROWNING \u2014 The sound of school bus horns carried on the wind through the neighborhoods in and around this small rural…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11504","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-article"},"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBrowning Works Together to Feed Kids during COVID-19 - MONTANA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nkh-state-nkh-state.pantheonsite.io\/montana\/2020\/03\/19\/browning-works-together-to-feed-kids-during-covid-19\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Browning Works Together to Feed Kids during COVID-19 - 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