In the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene, school districts across North Carolina pivoted from educating students to providing food, shelter and community support. Caldwell County Schools was one of them.
The school district reopened to students Tuesday for the first time since Hurricane Helene swept across the state. Even then, it was on a two-hour delay.
But during the week of school closures, four schools in the district did not sit idle.
The district organized feeding sites, where kids under 18 could grab hot meals and families could charge their devices, access Wi-Fi and services like social workers, counselors and nurses.
Superintendent Don Phipps says it was heartwarming to watch educators and the community at large work to get those services up and running.
“The question was never should we do that, it was how quickly could we do it?" Phipps said. "And we had to make sure that we could account for the food that we had, the food we had to discard, and then which schools could we open up a cafeteria where we had enough food, or we could move it from a freezer that had generator backup and get it all planned.”
Even before the storm, there were some students who may not have had access to a hot meal outside of the school day, Phipps said. As of last week, the district had distributed just under 2,000 meals, in addition to other donated items.
Phipps says the district first aimed to ensure the safety of staff and students, then to assess the needs of the community. Looking forward, the district is prepared to find ways push support out to communities further north and west, in harder hit areas of the county.
