School meal program faced COVID-19 shutdown. Here’s how Hilton Head restaurateurs helped
When Horry County’s school meals program was derailed by illness, two Hilton Head restaurateurs came to the rescue.
The meals program was responsible for feeding about 3,400 children breakfast and lunch, but when several employees tested positive for COVID-19, the program had to be suspended, the Sun News of Myrtle Beach reported.
And that’s when Operation BBQ Relief stepped in.
The national charity enlisted Lee Lucier, owner of FISH Casual Coastal Seafood and Local Pie in Bluffton and on Hilton Head, and Chef Clayton Rollison of Lucky Rooster Kitchen + Bar and Lucky Rooster Market Street. They got the call on a Thursday and, by Friday, they were setting up a kitchen to get to work.
“We were doing what we needed to do to make sure kids had proper nutrition and two meals a day,” Rollison said. “It was the right thing to do.”
The team of seasoned food service employees prepared between 65,000 and 70,000 meals over the course of 10 days out of the Myrtle Beach Convention Center. The breakfasts and lunches were picked up by members of the National Guard and handed out to families at 13 hubs across the county.
Horry County School District was able to resume meal preparation on May 4.
Operation BBQ Relief, founded in 2011, is known more for its response after natural disasters, but it also has provided more than a million meals to people affected by the coronavirus pandemic, its website says.
The organization, working with FISH Casual Coastal Seafood, also provided more than 20,000 meals to Hilton Head residents through the Coligny Cares drive in April.
This story was originally published May 12, 2020 at 11:25 AM.
