The national, non-profit School Nutrition Association (SNA) has named Crystal Jo Bruns, kitchen manager at Caliche Schools in RE-1 Valley Schools District, the Southwest Regional Manager of the Year. The award recognizes the dedication, ingenuity and compassion shown by SNA members who have excelled in keeping students fed during the pandemic.
“I was in shock, I didn’t even know I was nominated,” she said about finding out she had won the award.
Bruns is the kitchen manager at the school where her children attend, giving her extra motivation to make sure the food served exceeds students’ daily expectations. She will have worked for RE-1 Valley for eight years in August, the first five were spent at Caliche as a cook and then she moved to Campbell Elementary where she was kitchen manager for two years before coming back to Caliche last August.
“I have always been interested in food and cooking. I started back when I was really little with my grandma and then I continued on in 4-H, I did foods,” Bruns said.
A stay-at-home mom, when her youngest son went into kindergarten she was looking for something to keep her busy, so when a position opened up in the kitchen she didn’t hesitate.
Under Bruns’ guidance, smoothies and parfaits were added to the breakfast menu twice a week, and on those days the school had close to 100% participation in the Breakfast after the Bell program.
The school now sees more teachers participating in the lunch program as well. Bruns has created several different salad recipes each week, enticing a majority of the teachers to eat her salads for lunch. She says the salads are also available for students; they are placed in a to-go box that includes meat, cheese, a grain and all of the vegetables.
Bruns has a love for cooking and is also a field editor for Taste of Home Magazine, has entered many recipe contests and had recipes published in many magazines and cookbooks and she previously wrote weekly recipe articles for the Julesburg Advocate.
She always wants to share her cooking skills with those willing to learn. Bruns highlights the hard work of the school kitchen on social media, posting pictures and menus to encourage students to participate. She also encourages parents to come to the cafeteria now that COVID restrictions have been lifted and they are allowed to eat with their children.
Caliche Schools is smaller and more rural within the district, giving it some great advantages to be creative in the cafeteria. Bruns invited local veterans to have lunch with the students for Veterans Day, and included parents to have a special lunch with their children for Thanksgiving in the cafeteria.
“Crystal Bruns has made a positive impact on her school community. She is always willing to train staff on new skills and develop recipes to ensure a great experience for her student customers,” said SNA President Beth Wallace, MBA, SNS.
Bruns has been known to pay SNA dues for others so they could attend conferences together. She understands the benefit SNA training seminars have to help improve her work. Bruns participated in a cooking school offered to SNA members and found that invaluable to her career in child nutrition, even teaching others the knife cutting skills that she learned.
It’s not lost on Bruns just how important the meals she and her staff serve can be for some of the students at her school.
“In Sterling and out at Caliche we have a lot of kids that the only meals they get are at school, so having a good breakfast and being able to provide them lunch and then we have a snack program too, we make sure the kids get at least two healthy meals and a good snack every day,” she said.
That is why she a deeply concerned that a federal program that made school meals free for all students during the pandemic will expire at the end of June, unless there is Congressional action.
The state legislature has been working to try to ensure the free meals will continue in Colorado. While SB22-087, which would have tapped into state general funds to pay for free school meals, has stalled, legislators are now working on HB22-1414, which would ask voter in November, via ballot measure, if they want to limit tax deductions for the wealthiest households to raise up to $100 million to pay for the program beginning in the fall 2024 school year.
Bruns would like to encourage everyone to contact their legislators and let them know that they would like to see free meals continue. She points out that under the previous free and reduced lunch program, some families who qualified for the reduced price meals, but not the free meals, couldn’t afford to pay that cost.
“If the state of Colorado doesn’t pass the free meals, there’s going to be kids that are hungry because their families can’t afford to pay for the meal,” Bruns said. “If the state of Colorado can get it passed where it’s free meals, it will just make our lives a whole lot easier. We’re going to continue to feed kids, but if we go back to having to do paid meals, we’re probably going to have to reduce kitchen staff hours and stuff like that, and we’re already struggling to keep kitchen staff. So, if it doesn’t pass, we’re going to be hurting kids and we’re going to be hurting families in the district. I think it’s important that we try to push our legislators to pass that, because it’s really important to have all the goodness that we can provide those kids.”
The Manager of the Year Award is given in honor of Louise Sublette, a leader in school nutrition in her state and in the national School Nutrition Association. During her 43 years in the profession, Sublette worked in many areas of foodservice—public schools, colleges, hospitals and elderly feeding programs. Sublette dedicated her career to honoring school nutrition professionals and ensuring those who work in school cafeterias have access to professional development opportunities, empowering them to help their school meal programs flourish.
Bruns was announced as the Southwest regional Manager of the Year during a School Lunch Hero Day (SLHD) online awards ceremony on May 2. The accomplishments of Bruns and all of this year’s SNA award winners will also be recognized in a special publication and promoted in SNA’s annual SLHD social media campaign on Facebook.com/TrayTalk and TrayTalk.org.
