Director of School Food Services
Archdiocese of New Orleans

Pat Farris, at one of the more than 80 schools in her district. (Photo: ©2008 Jackson Hill/Southern Lights)

What ’s on Farris’s Plate ?

ANNUAL BUDGET: $16.8 million MEALS SERVED PER DAY: 27,000 EMPLOYES: 425 FTEs, 20 PT SITES: pre-Katrina 108, post-Katrina 83 PARTICIPATION: 75%

Before Hurricane Katrina devastatingly damaged New Orleans in August 2005, Pat Farris had already managed to rack up quite a list of impressive achievements for the foodservice department of that city's archdiocese of 100+ schools.

But her actions and accomplishments immediately following the storm, and since then, as the archdiocese has struggled to rebuild its schools and its employees' families have sought to rebuild their lives, have truly established her as a model of leadership. Farris' efforts are an example of the kind of broad-ranging effect a driven, committed school foodservice program can have on a community and have earned her a 2008 Silver Plate Award.

Her commitment to the school segment goes back to the 1980s, when, as area manager for the Louisiana Department of Education, she inspected and oversaw school foodservice facilities across the state. Farris had already spotted what she saw as her “dream job” — directing foodservices for the Archdiocese of New Orleans.

“In my position, I got to see a lot of different systems,” she recalls. “I reached the point where I no longer wanted to be the person telling foodservice departments what they needed to do; I wanted to actually implement those changes at a district myself.”

Of all the school systems she observed, Farris notes, “I loved the archdiocese of New Orleans the most, and decided to wait for a job to open up there.”

That happened in 1994, when the assistant director's position was posted and she was the successful candidate for it. Three years later Farris was named director. And over the next decade, before Hurricane Katrina struck, she set about making her mark.

First, there was her overhaul of business methods while she was still assistant director, taking the department from manual operations to complete computerization and centralizing menus in the mid-90s. That was followed by her implementation of a Severe Need Breakfast Program, changes that netted $85,000 in added annual revenue; the introduction of new menu items and a highly successful marketing initiative that increased sales by nearly 90 percent.

Farris worked to improve the lives of her employees as well, insisting upon boosting the wages of technicians and managers to put them at least on a par with, and in many cases, above, that of average local community wages.

It has been since Katrina, however, that Farris has really proven her mettle. Along with the help of dedicated staff, she's brightly burnished the reputation of the archdiocese schools, starting with an early response to the disaster which sought to gear up foodservice as soon as possible after the storm, even as she continued to live in temporary quarters herself and as her own house, irreparably damaged, had to be bulldozed.

Immediately post-Katrina, she found herself stuck in Baton Rouge, where she'd gone to seek shelter just before the hurricane hit. Her chief accountant was miraculously untouched and still in New Orleans; and her assistant director's home remained undamaged 40 miles to the south of the city. Taking advantage of that challenge, Farris' first order of business was to set up makeshift “command posts” in three separate regions.