Photo Credit: Makai Pagan
By Max Pepe ‘27 and Makai Pegan ‘27
Conestoga Valley High School‘s cafeteria is large and tends to be taken for granted by most students, but what happens behind the scenes is an important aspect of our cafeteria.
Tracy Merschen, CV’s kitchen manager, explained the preparation that goes into a standard meal: “For cheese crunchers and chili day they [the cafeteria workers] take out the ground beef 4 days before it is served, and it is about 80 pounds of ground beef. Then we put the cheese crunchers in the oven, and we mix the chili and the ground beef.”
All of this prep has to start early. Michelle Gibson, a cafeteria worker, explained what a normal day is like: “We usually roll in around 7:15, and we all do different parts like someone cleans, someone preps, cooks, lays out the food, etc.”
Gibson continued, “Around 10 is when we start getting ready for the students to come in. We have people on the cash register, people putting the food on the trays, the dishwashers, etc. After the students are done eating we clean up and usually finish around 2- 2:15.”
Most students remain unaware of this reality. Kole Brooks, a junior, said, “I don’t really know what they [cafeteria workers] do other than knowing they make the food and hand out our lunch.”
Conestoga Valley’s cafeteria workers put in a lot of work behind the scenes that often goes unnoticed by students. We should appreciate them and show them gratitude.
