Listen to the interview with Terri and Aaron Henkin from WYPR.

Name: Terri Downey-Holton
Job title: Training Specialist, Food & Nutrition Services
Photograph location: photographed at Western High School
Years of service: 34
When we have new products, we’ll bring them into the office or we’ll take them out to a school and have a variety of students come test out products, so they could give us feedback. The kids enjoyed coming out and tasting the products. And after a while, it’s on the menu and the student’s like, “Well, hey, I remembered, I tried that.” And they get their other friends to try it as well. -Terri Downey-Holton

Terri Downey Holton_BMI_08-25-21
Transcript of Terri Downey-Holton’s interview with Aaron Henkin by Rev.com

Terri Downey-Holton:
Hi. My name is Terri Downey-Holton. I am one of the specialists. My specialist area is in training. I train all employees for Baltimore City Public Schools. I’ve been in a system for over 34 years. I began as a food service worker and worked my way to the top, in between being a cafeteria manager and regional.
Aaron Henkin:
Rewind to the beginning of that long career and tell me about, how’d you find your way into a school cafeteria?
Terri Downey-Holton:
I found my way into the school cafeteria by way of my mother. Her name was Dorothy Downey. She was actually a cafeteria manager. And she shared with me that they were interviewing for positions. At that particular time, I was enrolled in school, so my intentions were going to school. But instead I said, “Okay, well let me see what this opportunity has for me.” So I began working as a food service worker substitute in 1984. By 1985, I had began being permanent.
Aaron Henkin:
Yeah, you can back up. That’s fine.
Terri Downey-Holton:
83, 84, 85, about 34 years. I get confused sometime with the years was [inaudible 00:01:20] 87? Was Mia 86 or she 85? Okay. 1983, 84, 85, 86. Back it up. It’s 86.
Aaron Henkin:
Okay.
Terri Downey-Holton:
So I began my career here in 1985 as a substitute. And then in 1986, I became a permanent food service employee. I worked at a school for about maybe five or six months at that time. And then an opportunity came for me to attend managers training. So I took that opportunity and went to the managers training class. Two months later, I was the manager at Lillie M. Jackson School, number 315. It was a small school, but it was special needs. And the most ironic thing, and the most grateful thing to me about that was I have a niece that’s special needs. She’ll be 40 at 9-1-1 this year, but I had opportunity to work with her, provide her foods, and during the time that I was there, I could interact with her as well. So the things I learned there, I could take home with my family, and it made a better life for [Nakia 00:02:31].
Terri Downey-Holton:
From there, I would say I stayed there a year and a half, and I was promoted to another location, to a larger school. Some of the schools I’ve served was Poly, Western, Garrison Middle, Edgewood Elementary, I think my tenure stopped at Garrison Middle. I’m sorry. No, I work at Medfield Heights too. I’m sorry. I worked in Mayfield Heights too. And my tenure stopped at Garrison Middle School, because during that time I worked for like nine years and then I was interviewed and selected to be a regional cafeteria manager. So I worked in a regional cafeteria capacity for maybe about 10 years or so, and then I became a staff specialist for Baltimore City Public Schools. And now I’m doing the training.
Aaron Henkin:
Talk to me about the most important things that you impart to the people you’re training as a manager, as a trainer for food nutrition. What are the most important things you learned and what are the most important things you feel they need to know and be prepared with?
Terri Downey-Holton:
Okay. I would say working with them and coming from the side where they are, I’m able to do different trainings for different levels, because everybody has different learning styles. Some are visual, some are hands on. So I recognize that. So when we’re doing our training classes, I’m able to do visuals hands-on and assist those that need help. I think the very most that I get out of that is, I know the space that they’re in and the level where they’re trying to come up to. So I’m there, I even help motivate them. I get a lot of calls from employees saying, “Ms Holton, do you think is a better way that I can do this?” Or “What do you think I need to grow? So I could become a regional,” Or “I want to be just like you and I become a regional and this setup.” Just the joy and the responses that I get from the people that I help.
Terri Downey-Holton:
I think that’s the most that I’ve gotten out of this job other than feed of the students of Baltimore City Public Schools. Because I enjoy watching them eat, I enjoy them coming through the cafeteria, especially the elementary school students. We have some schools where the employees, the staff may have been working here for over 10, 15, 20 years. So they have a rapport with the school as well as the students. So I remember being a regional cafeteria manager and going to a school one day, school 250. And the cafeteria manager there was Ms Golson.
Terri Downey-Holton:
And when I would get there to the school in morning, I would say, “Well, where’s Ms Golson?” “She’s on a playground getting the kids to come and eat breakfast.” So she was making sure that everyone had their breakfast before they went to class, whether they wanted to stay out there on the playground to the last bell rang or not, she was going to make sure those kids came in there and ate. I got joy out of that. Just seeing that the managers and things are putting in the work to ensure that our students are eating and listening to the trainers and things that we’ve been providing for them.
Aaron Henkin:
Before you ended up in your managerial and training role, it sounds like you put in a lot of time on the front lines, making food and interacting with students. I wonder if you can think about a time maybe during those years when… Like, is there a story of a student that you developed a bond with or whose story kind of reminded you how important the work was that you were doing?
Terri Downey-Holton:
Okay. So at Garrison Middle School, we actually had an adopted kids program. So the teachers and the staff in the school, we just adopted one of the kids, just take them under your wing as your own. So by me serving on a cafeteria line, I was actually a manager at that time, I just picked up on a few kids that will always come through the line, but seemed like they just needed a little more. They always wanted to talk to you or this, that and the other. So my adopted kid grew from one kid to four kids. I ended up taking them out, treating them out, like to the movies with parents’ permission and stuff like that. And the whole year that they were there for those whole three years, we all had a bond.
Terri Downey-Holton:
I even had a bond with some of the parents and we would call and we would interact, and talk about how the kid is doing, and, “Oh my daughter, she’s doing so much better. She loves coming into the cafeteria.” And then one particular time I had a gentleman, he devowed, he was never, ever going to eat a school lunch. And somehow he didn’t have his money that day. He happened to be a paid student.
Terri Downey-Holton:
And he came to the cafeteria, he was like,” Ms. Griffin,” Ms. Griffin, at that time, he said, “Ms. Griffin, I don’t have any money for lunch.” I said, “Well, what do you want to do?” “Can you give me some cookies and tilt them up?” No, I can’t give you any cookies, but I can give you a lunch. I’m not going to see you hungry. Come on back here and get yourself a lunch.” He got their lunch. And every day after that, he came in and he got the lunch, but “Ms. Griffin, I’m in line, I’m getting my lunch.” All because I let them have that lunch that he didn’t want to spend his money on the first time. But he came back and he spent his money and he began partaking in our meals.
Aaron Henkin:
Talk to me about the importance of nutrition. I mean, the science that goes into what these students eat, how much they eat, the variety of foods that they eat, and just what people don’t realize, maybe about all the thought that goes into school meals.
Terri Downey-Holton:
So our school meals are actually mandated by MSDE. So there are rules and regulations that we must follow. We cannot just go and get, “Oh, we’re going to order these cheeseburgers from this personal, or these burgers from this person and get these products from this person.” Everything has to be approved through MSDE and through our vendors. So when our dietician sits down, there’s a certain amount of grains, there’s a certain amount of protein and dairy that you’re supposed to have, fruits and vegetables as well throughout the week. So she develops the meals based on them. We try to take, well, we do limit the amount of fat that the students have.
Terri Downey-Holton:
If a child comes to school in the morning and has not dinner the day before, and does not have any breakfast in the morning, that child will not be functioning in that classroom during the day. And that’s a true scientific fact. You can’t work if you’re hungry. So our dietician, she does take the time. I’ll give, [inaudible 00:09:12] in her props. She does take the time to make nutritious meals for our students, incorporating different varieties of vegetables, fresh fruits, and salads. We even have cut up watermelon and different things from time to time. And the students really love it.
Aaron Henkin:
Talk a little bit about maybe the kind of foods and the kind of diet that students might be familiar with, and the kind of food that you’re trying to open their eyes to. I mean, it’s always a challenge getting a kid to try something new, right?
Terri Downey-Holton:
So, we had a salad bar years ago where the kids could come up and make their own salads. I would say it went over well, but sometime with the students, after a while, it wears off, the hype of it wears off. So after a while, they don’t want salads. You have to know your students. I’m going to give you an example. When I worked at Garrison Middle School, I could serve, let’s see one of the best meals on the menu, chicken patties. Back then we could run our cafeterias as our own. So we had the lettuce and tomatoes and nacho cheese sauce, all the things that go with it. Wasn’t too nutritious back then, but now we have better products, they’re nutritional products, we try to get to the students to understand that the reason why you can’t have this on this today, because it’ll go over the count for that day. But maybe later on that week, whatever it is that they’re asking for is on later that week. [inaudible 00:10:48].
Aaron Henkin:
Yeah, sure.
Terri Downey-Holton:
Ask the question again.
Aaron Henkin:
Yeah, no, I was asking you to just talk about getting kids to try new foods and what they’re used to eating.
Terri Downey-Holton:
Okay. So, a lot of times we have taste tests. So when we have new products, we’ll bring them into the office or we’ll take them out to a school and we will have a variety of students that come in and test out products, so they could give us feedback on the products as well. I would say most of the time the products go well. You may have one or two that they be like, “Nah,” But the kids enjoyed coming out, especially I think we had the algebra project at one of the schools. They enjoy coming out and tasting the products. And then after a while, it’s on the menu and the student’s like, “Well, hey, I remembered, I tried that.” So they are getting their other friends to try it as well. I can actually say, I know when products are really good when you see the same student got back in line that you know you served about 15, 20 minutes ago, and they’re trying to get another lunch. That’s when I can tell that the products are really good.
Aaron Henkin:
Brilliant. Talk to me about this past year and a half, the pandemic, how that’s changed the game for you?
Terri Downey-Holton:
So the pandemic changed the game for me. When the pandemic first started, I put on my mask and I went out to the schools because I needed to see and visualize, actually what’s going on. We changed from serving in the cafeteria to serving at tables, outdoors, the public. And so I was going from school to school to see what was what. We ended up instead of having in-person training to virtual training, and sending all PowerPoints and different things. That way we could connect with the managers as well as the employees, when we needed to give them additional information. It changed the whole lot because instead of working in an office with your peers that you’re used to seeing, now you’re working at home and you don’t get to see your peers every day. You got a chance to spend a little more time with your family, but then that’s 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Terri Downey-Holton:
So that could play on you and weigh on you as well. But during the pandemic, I really enjoyed when I was going from school to school, seeing the amount of customers coming up to the school, the people that were in need, the people coming up with their bags and lined up with their bags, getting the products and actually eating the products. And you could see them walking down the street and through the community with the food. I was glad that we were able to help a lot of people that were in need, because all those school is closed, you don’t have kids that could get up to the schools to get. So we have allow for parent pickup or per designee, and they could take home multiple meals, which was a win-win situation because we had so many people otherwise would not have had anything to eat.
Aaron Henkin:
I wonder if you might talk about… Here’s my question, what do you want people to understand about the importance of the job, of food nutrition workers, and just what the job is that they don’t understand? People might have misconceptions about what you all do and how important it is.
Terri Downey-Holton:
So for food service employees, it is a very important job. A lot of people think we just hire people to come in and just heat up the food, put it on a plate and serve the kids. No, there are instructions and their policies and procedures when they prepare the foods. We need to make sure that the server line is set up prior to the students coming in, you need to make sure that you know what your student county is in which our population is, we offer a variety of foods. So it’s not like, “Oh, we’re just coming in and preparing this for the day.” No, they have to follow the menu, they have to complete the inventory, they have to follow all protocols, including the health and safety guidelines that are put out now related to COVID-19. As a food service worker, you have to come in and sometimes you have to endure some of the, I’ll say, the challenges that some of the students, or some of the staff, or administrative may put on you.
Terri Downey-Holton:
They may not be having a great day, so you’re standing there serving, “Hello, how you doing?” And then now, while all of a sudden, a fight done broke out in the line, you don’t have any support. So even though we’re going there day to day, and they’re ensuring that the students are served, there are a lot of other challenges that they face from time to time. And our food nutrition services staff, they get monthly training on updates, on different ways of doing things. And we don’t just allow the manager to go in and say, “Hey, I’m the leader, let’s do it this way.” We always tell our managers, “sit down with your team. It’s a team effort. You may know how to do it this way, but there are a lot of times our food service workers, they are gifted too.
Terri Downey-Holton:
They have different ways of doing things. And when you work together as a team, it gets the job done.” It can come from just a matter of prepping, to doing inventory, sanitizing the cafeteria, whatever the job is, our food nutrition service employees go the extra mile to do that. We have numerous food nutrition service employees that are not managers that know the managerial day to day operation. And when the managers are out, the employee step up and they operate the cafeteria to keep it running, so our kids can be fed a nutritious meal.
Aaron Henkin:
A couple more for you, and I’ll let you go.
Terri Downey-Holton:
No problem. I hope I’m answering right.
Aaron Henkin:
No, You you’re doing great. What is your least favorite part of the job, the part of the job that gives you the biggest headache? And what is your most favorite part of the job, the part of the job that makes it all worthwhile?
Terri Downey-Holton:
I would say the worst part of the job is school opening, when everybody’s hustling around trying to get acclimated for the new updates and you have new employees coming in, and you’re trying to do orientation, and you’re trying to do multiple things. I can say that’s really like the most hectic thing, the most hectic aspect of the job. The most rewarding part for me is I’ve been in the system for over 34 years. I’ve had the opportunity to work with so many good people, from employees, to the middleman in the middle of the central office, to the top people in central office. The people in different departments that work in central office. I think that’s the most rewarding part for me, is just working with a group of people that want to work together as a team to get the job done, to feed our students from Baltimore City. I think that’s really the most challenging part for me, the most rewarding part for me, working together as a team to get the job done.
Aaron Henkin:
I wonder if you might think about how this career choice, this career path has changed you as a person over the decades. I mean, when you started, you say, you picked the job because he needed some money, and then next thing, lo and behold, this is a 30 plus year career. You could have been, obviously could have succeeded in any different sorts of fields. How has this job, this career path sort of defined who you are as a person outside of work?
Terri Downey-Holton:
I would say it defined me as a person. I would say it made me a better person, because as I stated before, this was not my job path. Again, I’ll state, my mother was here and I gave it a chance. And after I got in to the system and I saw that, “Hey, we’re serving the students of Baltimore City. Everybody has to eat. My child goes to Baltimore City Public Schools. I felt like I needed to be here. I feel like I’m a part of Food and Nutrition Services. I have a good rapport with so many of the employees, I love helping others in any capacity. I will stop what I’m doing to help someone else, which is not really a good thing, but I’ll pick back up my other job just to make sure that other person is okay and can go on and do what they need to do.
Terri Downey-Holton:
As a person, I would say maybe as a food service employee, after I worked a couple of years, I was like, “Okay, this is not for me.” But then as I saw that I could grow and move up and there were opportunities for me, and serving the students, I was like, “Okay, I have ideas too. So maybe I can move up and I can be the manager.” “Okay, well now, that I have my school, let me implement the things that I know that I can do better for the students here.” I linked up, we had different committees back then that you can join within Food and Nutrition Services. We had Chapter 13, that’s affiliated with the state and they come in and they do different trainings and things that maybe Food and Nutrition didn’t, wouldn’t do. And this would give me the opportunity to come back with that information and share it with other people. As a food service manager, I had the opportunity to talk to other managers and to share staff meetings.
Terri Downey-Holton:
So instead of me attending a meeting, my supervisor had enough faith in me for me to lead team meetings and things. So I enjoy doing that as well. So, that path kind of led me to where I am, and I just kept feeling like, “Okay, let me learn more. Well, let me show people how to do more.” And I have people that will call me to this day, “Ms. Holton.” “Yes, how you doing? Who are you?” “Oh, I’m so and so, you don’t remember me, but I met you doing my interview and I heard you say X, Y, and Z at the such and such, do you know how I can sign up to do something?” “Send me an email. I’ll send you the information and I’m glad that you reached out to me. Let me know if you have any more issues, I’m there to help.” And they’ll say, “Thank you.”
Terri Downey-Holton:
I’m really grateful for the opportunity that I have had with Food and Nutrition Services to meet a lot of the students. I still see them, some of our students now work with us. I had a young lady that worked at, she was at Garrison Middle School, and I walked into the cafeteria, she was like, “I know you.” She was like, “You’re Ms. Griffin.” I was like, “No, I’m Mrs. Holton.” Now she was like, “But you worked at Garrison.” “And I remember you too.” So she became a cafeteria manager and it’s just rewarding to see the people coming up after 34 years to see where they are now, and then the students that graduated. Saw a students that went to Garrison and he coaches the choir at City State, I mean at City High School. So, I mean, I get rewards seeing him, so. Might have said too much [crosstalk 00:22:29] Aaron Henkin:
No, that was great. Anything else you want to add that I neglected to ask you about? I mean, you did a great job.
Terri Downey-Holton:
I could tell you about something bittersweet. So I’m currently working in central office and I’ve been there for the past, maybe over 15 years or 20, because the regional managers work out of central office. And I’ve been here for 34 years, so I’ve had the opportunity of meeting and working side by side with so many great people. So this year I had a friend of mine retire and one of the regionals, and over the last few years, a few of regionals have retired that I’ve been working so closely with. And then this year there were going to be two of us left in the office that have been working together for over 30 something years. And she just recently passed away about a month ago. So, I mean, it would have been just myself and Virginia Jones left in the office. So, I mean, God knows what was best, but it was kind of, it hit me kind of hard because it’s like, I feel like now I’m the only one left for my generation back then.
Terri Downey-Holton:
We have the employees there for sure, but those that work side by side, really close then to come in the office in the morning and he’ll say, “Hey T, what you’re doing today?” I’m not going to get that anymore. However, I am grateful to say that we have a lot of regional cafeteria managers in there and they have come up through the ranks of me, I had them as employees and or cafeteria managers. And so now they did their due diligence and they made the way, and they’re now regional cafeteria managers as well. So seeing that growth and some people that I had led, and now they’re leading others, I don’t think I could ask for a better reward right now.