By Pat Jenkins The Dispatch How would you like to cook 2 million lunches and 250,000 breakfasts a year? That's what the Bethel School District does for its students, and the public got to see where it will be done during a dedication ceremony for the district's new central kitchen and transportation center. Like proud parents of a new baby, district officials showed off the dual facility with tours as part of the formal unveiling Feb. 3 of the complex that was built with funds from a bond measure passed by voters in 2006. In addition to being the hub of all meal preparations and child nutrition services when that portion becomes fully operational before the end of this school year, the facility also is home to the district's transportation department and its 213 school buses that annually carry students more than 2 million miles. It gets rave reviews from the people who work there. "I love our facility. It's beautiful," said Karen Campbell, the transportation director. She said the airy, two-story building is "so big, it was almost overwhelming at first" and is proving its additional worth as a center for driver conferences and training. But the central kitchen, sitting next to the transportation facility, captured the lion's share of attention from community members. The dedication marked big changes for the staff of both departments. State-of-the-art food storage and cooking systems that will spring to life after finishing touches on the building are signed off will strealine production of meals and enable the district to provide a meals-on-wheels program for schoolchildren in rural areas during the summer. Leeda Beha, director of child nutrition services, explained the kitchen's processes during a walking tour of its giant walk-in coolers and convection ovens. She pointed out the 100,000-gallon kettles that produce mass quantities of spaghetti sauce, sloppy joe's and macaroni and cheese. Those and other foods will be pre-cooked by a dozen kitchen workers in six-hour shifts and then delivered by trucks to individual schools. Beha said the kitchen, with its generator and capability of mass-produced meals, can also serve the community as a source of food during disaster relief. School Board member Warren Smith thanked voters for supporting the bond that led to construction of the kitchen and transportation center, which he said are central "to what we do day in and day out for our students - get them to and from school and feed them." Counting those facilities and other improvements in the last 10 years, half of Bethel's buildings are now new or remodeled. "We're a model of success" for school districts, said superintendent Tom Siegel. The dedication ceremony included choreographed musical performances by Spanaway Lake High School's student group The Music Company. The Junior ROTC honor guard from Graham-Kapowsin High School opened the proceedings by presenting the colors.
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