“A c h i l d c a n n o t l e a r n
i f t h e y ’ re h u n g r y.”
students with healthy, filling meals throughout the day.

It combines photography by J.M. Giordano with art
by Laura Lynn Emberson of the Baltimore Polytechnic
Institute and three student art contest winners. These
visuals pair with audio by podcaster Aaron Henkin, who
has previously worked with the BMI for its Bethlehem
Steel Legacy Project.

The idea for the exhibit came about in 2021, when
the museum was holding its first-ever outdoor exhibit:
“Women of Steel,” honoring women working in the
steel industry. BMI’s community programs manager,
Auni Gelles, recalls that BCPS staff approached the
museum about doing a similar exhibit to recognize
Baltimore-area teachers and food service workers.

“We really leaned into first-person stories and audio
storytelling as part of our Bethlehem Steel Legacy
project,” says Gelles, also on the “Food for Thought”
curatorial team, “and found that an audio format was
a great way for workers to tell their own stories in
their own ways.”
“A lot of people don’t really understand what we
do,” says Sheila Alston, one of the nine workers fea-
tured in the exhibit. Alston worked as a BCPS food
service worker for 37 years. “I think it’s an opportunity
for people to really see what food service is all about.”
BCPS’s food service workers play an important
role in the lives of the children they feed. According
to St. Vincent de Paul of Baltimore, a local nonprofit
dedicated to fighting poverty, one in three Baltimore
City children lives in a food desert and does not have
access to the healthy meals they need to thrive. Food
insecurity is a persistent problem in the Baltimore
22 Washington FAMILY
MARCH 2023
COURTESY OF BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF INDUSTRY
Baltimore City Public Schools staff
prepared more than 11 million meals
during the 2021-2022 school year.

UMKEHRER/E+/GETTY IMAGES
— SHELIA ALSTON
FOOD AND NUTRITION SERVICES STAFF, BCPS
“Food for Thought” exhibit at the Baltimore Museum of Industry