Clinton City Schools are going beyond education
The coronavirus pandemic has closed schools in Tennessee for the reminder of the 2019-2020 academic year. It’s also brought an end to the spring sports season for the Clinton Blaze.
But that doesn’t mean that Clinton City Schools Athletic Director E.T. Stamey is sitting around and taking it easy.
Despite the school closure, the school district is distributing meals to the city’s children and Stamey is helping to organize meal distribution at North Clinton and South Clinton elementary schools.
Meals are handed out at both locations Monday through Friday.
Breakfast and lunch may be picked up at North Clinton from 10 a.m-1 p.m. and at South Clinton from noon-12:30 p.m.
“Our cafeteria workers are handing out the food and it is drive-through only,” Stamey said. “All you have to do is drive up and put up the number of fingers for the number of kids that you have.
“Then, they’ll give you the food to feed the number of kids in your family. You get breakfast and lunch. There may be some people who don’t know about this and we want the people to know that it’s there.
Stamey is helping coordinate the distribution as he helps order food. He also coordinates the volunteer effort needed to assure the efficiency of the program, which is federally funded and also gets a helping hand from Faith Promise Church.
“It’s federally funded and we get help from Faith Promise Church,” Stamey said. “And we’re glad to have their help and have them aboard.
“We’ve given away 30,000 meals in 28 giving days.”
Stamey and CCS are diligently making an effort to feed the children of Clinton and the district doesn’t want to see the community’s youth go hungry on the weekends.
“On Fridays, we give out enough food to last the whole weekend. We give out enough food to last for Friday, Saturday and Sunday,” Stamey said. “It’s good food. Everybody gets a hot item, three or four cold items, milk and orange juice.
“We have a lot of volunteers come in on Thursdays to help package the meals for the weekend. Anyone can volunteer. It can be churches or it can be a person who wants to come in and volunteer. They’ll be gloved up and masked up. It’s a safe environment.”
While he is helping with things in the present, Stamey is also looking toward next year and the Clinton Blaze and Lady Blaze Basketball season, which begins in late-September.
“Right now, this is what I do,” he said. “I do this and I work on my basketball schedule.”
