LifeChanger of the Year Nominee Profile

Lindsey Ison was nominated by her principal, Sandra Kernen.

Changing lives is exactly what Ms. Ison has done since being hired as a team member at Fairhaven Schools. Since her first year, she has been chasing down grant funding and discovering ways to educate students, staff, and families about healthy eating. However, she manages to do it in fun ways, such as having Olaf visit classrooms during lunch time to share the benefits of carrots, or having Moana share fruit and dance moves to keep students moving and healthy.

All of the students in the Fairhaven Program have disabilities. The Fairhaven Program includes grades K-12 (112 students) as well as integrated preschool classes (120 students). Ms. Ison manages to create programming appropriate for all age ranges. It's a challenge, to say the least, but she answers it every year, even during a pandemic.

This year, with the added challenges of COVID-19, Ms. Ison secured grants to ensure each student in the program receives free lunches for the next four years. She took the time to discover the high-risk needs of her students' families and worked to create a Backpack Program, which required $30,000 in funding. Because of the Backpack Program, students have food going home with them on the weekends, when they are most at risk for food insecurity. She is also working to create a way to provide a holiday meal to send home to families that have no way of providing one.

During this school year with blended learning, she worked with the Transportation Department to figure out a way to have food packets delivered to the homes of the families, since many of them have no way of getting to the school. She had to work with her team to find ways to deliver the food in safe, timely ways to ensure food illness did not occur. She took this challenge head-on and has made this a program that is making a wonderful difference in the students' lives. Many of the students have significant medical needs, so Ms. Ison has sent home lunches that cater to each students' needs or medical issues, such as food allergies or the need for pureed or mechanical soft foods. It has been an incredibly difficult challenge, but nothing has stopped her from meeting the students' needs.

For many schools, the cafeteria supervisor is the unsung hero. Often times, parents aren't even sure who the cafeteria supervisor is, but Ms. Ison has worked hard to make her presence known. She will personally meet with families to answer their questions, address their needs, help them complete Free and Reduced Lunch applications, and create healthy eating presentations in the hopes of helping children thrive. This year, she was able to reach out to teachers and safely incorporate students into the meal prep process so they could work on job-related skills while at school participating in the school-to-work programming. It has been wonderful to watch the program blossom into a set process, and she hopes to keep it post-COVID.

When Ms. Ison is not at school, she can be found volunteering with her children at a nonprofit called Making Kids Count. This is a volunteer program that works to provide nonfood essentials to families such as diapers, wipes, strollers, car seats, etc. She has combined her work and passion to send diapers with the food packets that go home to families in need.

"Her presence in our program has been incredible, and she never touts her own horn," said Kernen. "To be honest, many may not realize all that she does. She works to do what is needed and is often under the radar, which is what makes her a true heroine."

Ms. Ison was selected as a 2020-21 LifeChanger of the Year Grand Prize Finalist and received a $5,000 cash prize to share with her school. Since then, she has used the funds to expand the school back pack program, begin a farm-to-table program, and start a studen-driven composting program. She's currently looking to obtain funds for a school greenhouse to begin a student-led program.