Klinkenberg fighting childhood hunger

CHENEY – Chef L.J. Klinkenberg isn't your ordinary school district food director.

A long-time culinary veteran who's created certified culinary schools in the Midwest, produced food television on the Food Network and ran fine dining establishments, the 46-year-old left all that behind for a much simpler calling – feeding the children in his community.

Klinkenberg is the executive chef and director of the Cheney School District's food services. He started a program that allows more than 5,000 students to eat lunch for free.

In the month of October, the district served 54,668 lunches (2,733 daily), 36,112 breakfasts (1,805 daily) which amounts to 4,538 free meals per day.

Klinkenberg basically grew up in the restaurant and service industry.

His parents owned and operated Klink's Williams Lake Resort, but they didn't want their son "ruining their food costs."

So, he worked on his craft at neighboring restaurants and figured he'd end up working in fine dining forever.

One of his biggest accomplishments is creating a certified culinary program in Decatur, Ill., where he graduated 52 students in four years and created the scaffolding for services like financial aid that can help the students graduate.

He grew up in the Redmond area on the western side of the Cascades.

But life brought him back to Cheney after the family needed a change of pace from the Illinois scenery. He was continuing what he referred to as "ego driven work" writing, consulting and doing a little acting on the side.

During one family dinner, his daughter said something that would change the course of his life forever. "Some of my friends at school are hungry and they never get food this good," he said.

If a 4-year-old can see that there's something wrong, then there's a clear issue, Klinkenberg thought to himself.

"Can you help them," his daughter asked him.

He said sure – a simple answer to a complicated question: How do you feed an entire school district's worth of children healthy whole food and cook it from scratch?

Two weeks later, Klinkenberg would get his first crack at feeding the kids in his community by applying for and receiving a job as at Empire Health Foundation.

He worked with around 40 school districts around the country during his four-years at EHF and the school district was one of his projects.

When he was looking for his next steps after EHF, a position opened for the food director of the district and he didn't trust anyone to hold the mission as near to their heart as it was to his.

So, he took the job with a two-year commitment, but just competed his sixth full school year and shows no signs of slowing anytime soon.

One doesn't have to travel far to see the impact Klinkenberg is making in the lives of students. Klinkenberg's scratch-cooking curriculum is at full swing at Westwood Middle School.

His team was hard at work getting lunch ready for the students.

Tomato soup and cheese zombies (a sort of cheesy calzone which meets state sodium requirements) were being placed into heating trays just minutes before the lunch bell rang.

There were also trays filled with dried apple chips, freshly sliced cucumbers and sandwich bags of bright red cherry tomatoes.

Serving kids meals cooked from scratch starts a chain reaction of teaching children about cooking and what good healthy food actually is and it's working.

Kids were grabbing double bags of tomatoes and having open discussions about their food in the lunch line. It was a much more involved process than anything children experienced.

When is the last time you saw a middle school student eating handfuls of cherry tomatoes?

"Our salad bars are magical," Klinkenberg said.

He's bringing back his own version of the childhood nostalgia, too.

He remembers when his parents let him build his own plate at a Sizzler or Wendy's salad bar.

His kitchen team at Westwood reiterated several times that children want their scatch-cooking to return and keep asking when it's coming back – another simple question with a complex answer that is complicated due to the supply chain issues caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and related shutdowns.

While there has been some unprecedented challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic, Klinkenberg said he hasn't budged from his goals of ending childhood obesity right here in Cheney's public schools.

Goals and strategies change, but the mission stays the same, "Feed the babies," Klinkenberg said.