Mondays at East High Begin With Fuel Up First
School Board member Connie Boesen serves an East High student some breakfast pizza at the school’s weekly Fuel Up First breakfast.
Homecoming Week couldn’t have dawned any brighter at East High School than it did this morning – or more fragrantly!
As students arrived on campus they were greeted by aromas wafting from a food truck of a different sort. This one belongs to The Salvation Army and it was dispensing breakfast pizzas provided by Northern Lights. Officers from the Des Moines Police Department were strolling the grounds with boxes of hot, fresh slices, like waiters with trays of hors d’oeuvres at a cocktail party. Many of the hungry takers were dressed in pajamas, the crazy dress theme du jour to kick off Homecoming festivities.
But the breakfast event was not Homecoming-related. It was the formal launch of Fuel Up First, a joint effort by a DMPD/community/schools triad that’s been going on every Monday morning before school since the school year began about a month ago.
Police noticed there had been a spike in petty crime and mischief around town at what seemed like an odd time period for such a trend: Monday mornings. DMPD Sgt. Lori Neely got a hunch. To the extent that juveniles were involved, maybe it was a consequence of hunger. She went looking for some partners in an experiment and found them in Viva East Bank, a neighborhood revitalization alliance of community stakeholders on the eastside where Sgt. Neely has been a community liaison officer for the last four years. Her boss, DMPD Chief Dana Wingert, gave his blessing.
Habitat for Humanity and Polk County have also stepped up to support the initiative at East.
“If I hadn’t she probably would have gone ahead anyway,” Chief Wingert said. “She gets things done.” East principal Leslie Morris interrupted Sgt. Neely in mid-pitch to say “Let’s do it.”
And so began a program aimed at filling empty stomachs and bringing cops and teens together in a friendly context with an emphasis on the “serve” part of the motto “To protect and serve.”
Jill Padgett is the Community Schools Coordinator at East and she has seen Fuel Up First grow from week to week.
“We served 75 kids the first week and 150 the next,” she said as a pretty sunrise lit the scene on the East front lawn. “One student on his way to school at Hiatt (Middle School) last week saw the police and approached with his hands up, sarcastically. He ended up eating three slices and taking a fourth with him in his backpack.”
Minutes later the same boy showed up this morning. Padgett pointed him out as he approached and hugged one of the officers he recognized.
“My idea simply was maybe they’re hungry,” Sgt. Neely said. “A lot of kids are by the time they get back to school on Monday morning. So we fill their stomachs and get to know each other a little bit at the same time. It’s been a good thing.”
Besides food, kit bags filled with necessary items like toiletries were being distributed too, thanks to the generosity of a kindergartener who diverted the goodwill from his birthday party to a good cause.
Alex Thrane attends Samuelson Elementary and his grandmother, Claudia Thrane, is affiliated with the DMPD Community Ambassadors. She was planning a party for Alex recently and they got to talking about his good fortune and the fact that he already had plenty of toys. So Alex decided to ask his guests to bring items for the kits that were passed out this morning, effectively inviting a bunch of teenagers to the celebration of his 6th birthday.
“For the Service of Humanity” is the motto at East. And vice versa in this case.
