People
Chef dishes disaster delicacies: bologna, hotdogs
Lisa Sandoval trained as a chef at San Francisco’s Le Cordon Bleu. She has prepared meals fit for royalty. But during the last week of October, her bologna sandwiches were worth gold.
The La Mesa, California, Kiwanian didn’t hesitate when California-Nevada-Hawaii District Governor Oscar Knight asked her to coordinate food efforts for the thousands of people who were displaced by raging wildfires that consumed much of eastern San Diego County.
“I gathered some volunteers, and the Key Clubbers came because they had no school (due to the fires). They were all food-certified (a health department requirement), because I was qualified to certify them,” says Lisa, a 44-year-old mother of four who also is a general contractor and licensed welder.
Lisa headed to the La Mesa Community Center where she was met by the mayor and city attorney and was told she had full cooperation from the city.
“We started making sandwiches—everything you can imagine—ham, cheese, salami, bologna, turkey, peanut butter and jelly,” she says. “We started making sack lunches with water, granola bar, fruit, chips, and sandwiches.”
At nearby QualComm Stadium, fellow Kiwanian Gary Jander got the attention of the scores of television cameras. He announced on television that donated supplies were now needed at the La Mesa Community Center.
“Food started coming in by the buckets-full,” Lisa says. “I set up tables along the walls and gave volunteers lists and Sharpie pens, and then I delegated so they would organize everything as it came in. We had more than 4 tons of clothing, 500 pounds of dog food, 15,000 cases of water. We made more than 20,000 meals over three and one-half days.”
Many of those meals were delivered to QualComm and other evacuation centers.
October’s wildfires were a repeat performance. In October 2003, the Cedar Fire destroyed 2,400 homes. This recent firestorm leveled 1,700 homes.
“The lessons from the Cedar fire were written out. We learned a lot in 2003,” says Governor Oscar, who was heavily involved with the volunteer efforts during both fires. “Kiwanis was better mobilized this time.”
When she’s not feeding evacuees, Lisa teaches life skills to people who have mental disabilities, and cooking classes for children.
Lisa guesses she slept about six hours over a four-day stretch during the fires and never did get to go home.
“I had the mayor of La Mesa delivering ‘pigs in a blanket’ at 2 in the morning,” she says.—Curt Seeden |
