A Life-Changing Education: How the Hartman Supply Center Provides for MHS Students
Featuring Chris Smith, MHS Sophomore
For children living in poverty, clothing and food insecurity—combined with a lack of access to hygiene products—can have a significant impact on their overall health. When basic needs remain unmet, children may experience increased stress and anxiety, which can hinder their cognitive abilities and social interactions.
The lack of these basic needs can adversely affect student learning in an academic setting. For example, without adequate clothing, students may experience bullying, which can lead to social isolation, poor grades, a lack of self-esteem, and even increased absenteeism. These same outcomes can occur when students have poor hygiene and are hungry, especially considering a child’s brain development requires the right balance of nutrients.
This is why Milton Hershey School believes in a whole child approach to student care. Thanks to the generosity of our founders, Milton and Catherine Hershey, we provide for our students’ basic needs—including clothing, food, and personal hygiene products—at no cost to them or their families. By understanding and addressing these fundamental needs, MHS creates an environment where students feel secure and are better equipped to succeed academically.
The MHS Hartman Supply Center staff is at the heart of delivering on this commitment to student care. They coordinate and distribute apparel, meals, personal hygiene items, and more to meet the needs of more than 2,200 students.
In our recent video special about the mission of MHS—“A Life-Changing Education”—high school sophomore Chris Smith took viewers on a tour of the Hartman Supply Center. They saw how students visit the Clothing Center to receive an entire wardrobe of coordinated clothing, including school attire, formal Sunday chapel attire, and casual clothes. They saw the Central Kitchen, where lunch and dinner meals are prepared during the week. Breakfast and weekend meals are prepared within student homes, but all grocery items—close to 20,000 per school year—are stored in and distributed from the Supply Center. Lastly, they saw how personal hygiene and household products—nearly 7,000 per school year—are distributed and transported across our campus.
We asked Chris how caring for these basic needs helps his academic success. The following are his answers, in his own words:
Tell us a little bit about yourself. What brought you to MHS?
I’m the second oldest of five children. When I was in the second grade and only 7 years old, my father passed away. My mother had to raise five kids on her own, and food was hard to come by. Even though she had a job, she would go to food banks to feed us. It’s hard being a single parent.
Now that my siblings and I are here at MHS, we’re never hungry. We don’t need to cycle through the same clothes that we did back home. I know if I was still at home, I wouldn’t have all the opportunities I have now.
How do you feel about the coordinated clothing among your classmates?
I’d say it makes us more uniform. Some kids at my old school would get bullied if they wore Sketchers instead of Jordans, things like that. If we all wear similar clothes, there’s nothing to judge. It makes you treat people equally with respect, without knowing if they own this brand or that brand.
How has the food at MHS expanded your horizons outside of the classroom? Do you have a new favorite food?
There’s a variety of different foods available from the Supply Center, and it’s distributed so quickly. Our houseparents get us involved with chores called Chef 1 and Chef 2. We cook with our houseparents all week and learn how to cook different meals for everybody. Last Saturday, I made fried chicken for the first time. I also learned how to dice an onion for my new favorite food, curry chicken and rice.
What has it meant to you and your education, knowing you’ll always have everything you need inside and outside the classroom?
It has greatly increased my education. I wouldn’t say I lacked focus before I came to MHS, but it has helped me focus and participate more in class. I’m grateful for everything I get here, which I take seriously. There’s been a lot of opportunities that I’ve taken and seized for myself to better my education as well.
What was one of those opportunities which you have been able to focus on because you no longer worry about clothing and food?
One of those opportunities came about through my mentor, who works at The Hershey Company. He helped me get in contact with the company’s chief supply chain officer. I learned how he sets goals, measures performance, and improves the supply chain. Now, supply chain management is one of the business fields I am interested in exploring more.
With his career interest in supply chain management, Chris asked the team in the Hartman Supply Center questions about their operations. MHS Director of Student Apparel and Hair Jennifer Guimond, Director of Food Services Brad Hajek, and Manager of Transportation Mark Mears were happy to share more about their work:
Mrs. Guimond, how do you keep all of the clothing we need in stock? What happens when we grow out of our clothes?
Our inventory levels vary depending on the time of year. For example, we spend all summer receiving new clothing orders for our back-to-school fitting season. We manage our inventory by placing orders six months in advance based on our historical usage by size and color. This ensures we receive things on time.
When students, like yourself, request new clothing items, you will return the old items which you have outgrown and/or worn out. We recycle a lot of clothing by reissuing it to students (only if in like-new condition) or donating it to non-profit organizations. You then have the option to come to the Clothing Center to “shop” for new clothing items or complete an online request to have them delivered to your student home.
Mr. Hajek, since I’ve been a student, I’ve tried a variety of different foods. How much food do we go through every year, and how does the Supply Center manage the variety?
We manage the inventory of almost 1,300 unique food items and 800 personal care items for your student home. We use several suppliers who tap into the global food supply chain to supply our food in bulk. We go through a lot of food each year, including over 63,000 pounds of beef and 109,000 pounds of chicken, requiring a lot of coordination. We also tap into several niche suppliers for smaller, unique needs, like allergen-friendly food.
For prepared foods, we create an annual menu with a variety of meals and cycle out about 30% of the menu each year for new, creative meals. We have a very talented culinary group who innovate new recipes and submit them to a yearly competition to see what the students like the most. We also have a monthly cultural food day to expose you to new foods from around the world that could become regular menu items. For example, we recently tried peri peri chicken from South Africa. The students and staff loved the meal so much that we’re looking to add it to the menu next school year.
Mr. Mears, I often see delivery drivers at my student home providing us with food and supplies. What goes on behind the scenes to make that happen?
There is a lot of management and coordination between departments to schedule pick-up and delivery services. My job is to ensure the safe transport of students and school personnel, efficient and safe delivery of freight, mail, and food supplies to all student homes, and various other transportation support services as requested by school program leaders.
Our current fleet of 10 delivery trucks and about 25 drivers work collaboratively with the MHS Central Kitchen, Distribution Center, and Clothing Center to deliver items requested from those departments to all student homes. Your houseparents manage a budget that grows as you grow to request items through an online fulfillment system. Then, each department gathers the requested items before the Transportation team picks them up and delivers them to your student home.
