Switzerland Co. cafeteria team saving families $300K so far this year

Steven Harmeyer
Apr 25
2 min read

The mother and daughter work to provide free healthy meals

(VEVAY, Ind.) – Switzerland County cafeteria employees have saved parents thousands of dollars, while ensuring students get healthy meals.

Every student in the corporation receives free breakfast or lunch.

The program was created by Gayla Bullock about five years ago after she conducted an extensive amount of research.

“I went through every student in the corporation to see if they qualify for free and reduced lunch,” Bullock said.

Her efforts helped identify that the district meets a threshold where all students can get free meals.

They have served approximately 135,000 meals so far this school year.

“I did some calculations recently, where I saw another school charges $2.85 per student. It made me realize we have saved Switzerland County parents more than $300,000 so far and the year is not over,” she said.

That is for this school year alone. If you add the previous four years, Gayla’s efforts have saved parents over a million dollars.

The team is not only providing free meals but also nutritious options.

Her daughter, Jennifer Canfield, helps with the farm-to-school program where they offer fresh produce and other healthy options on a daily basis. We are hoping to get the farm to school program into the other school cafeteria’s soon.

“She said if you’re willing to cook it I will bring it in. My goodness, we have made meatloaf, we’ve made fresh pork patties for breakfast, fresh salad bars, and taco salad,” Canfield said.

The free program took a significant amount of work to establish but Bullock said it has been well worth it.

“I remember sending notes to parents that said their child has eaten three meals, and you need to send money. I know longer have to do it,” Bullock said.

Canfield echoed her mother by saying, “It is no fun having to take a meal away from a kid. It is no fun saying you can’t have a warm meal, it is truly heartbreaking.”