Tacoma school cafeteria food goes to food bank

TACOMA, Wash. — With Tacoma schools closed by a teachers' strike, district food service workers gave perishable produce to a food bank.

The News Tribune reports workers loaded their personal cars Monday to deliver about a dozen pallets of lettuce, strawberries, grapes and other food to the Emergency Food Network, a nonprofit that supplies about 70 Pierce County food banks. Otherwise the fresh fruit and vegetables would have gone to waste.

Nutrition Services Director Paul Scott says schools are hanging on to apples, oranges and carrots that last longer.

Members of the union that represents 1,900 teachers voted Sept. 12 to strike and they voted again last week to defy a judge's back-to-work order. The strike has idled 28,000 students in Washington's third-largest school district.

Negotiations continue.