A CAMERA, A FRONT ROW SEAT, AND SO MUCH RESPECT
T here’s a part of my job that doesn’t show up on a job description: the front-row seat. As a social media manager, I don’t run a kitchen, I don’t build a menu, and I’m not the one making the budget work. But I’m often the person standing just off to the side with a camera, watching you do all of that, and after enough of those moments, I’ve started to realize just how much I’m actually witnessing when I’m on-site with you. Innovation. Problem- solving. Care, at a scale most people never think about. It’s a strange privilege, honestly, getting paid to notice things you’re too busy doing the work to stop and appreciate yourselves. One of the moments that’s stuck with me most recently happened at Angeline
Academy of Innovation in Pasco County — the first public school in Florida to bring in a Botrista, a machine that makes specialty coffee, lemonade, and boba right there in the cafeteria. I tried the salted caramel coffee myself, and I’m not exaggerating when I say it was genuinely good. Not “good for a school” good — just good. It’s also a partnership with the school’s entrepreneurship class, so students aren’t just watching a cool machine, they’re picking up real business and customer service skills, the kind that don’t show up on a transcript but absolutely show up later, in a first job or a college interview. I won’t go deep into the details of that day, but standing in that school, watching a brand-new idea come to life in a public
school, stuck with me. It’s a signal of what’s possible when a team like yours decides to think bigger than trays and lines, and it doesn’t happen without someone in your position deciding it was worth the risk. That’s really the thing I keep coming back to, FSNA members: you’ve put me in rooms most people never see. I’ve watched you talk your teams through last-minute changes with more patience than I could manage on my best day. I’ve watched you pull off scratch-made meals for hundreds of students without ever making it look hard. I’ve watched you quietly solve problems and still show up smiling for a photo an hour later. None of that makes it into the caption. But I see it, every
Kariss Harvey | Social Media Manager Kariss Harvey is a Social Media Manager at NxtGen Network, creating and managing content across the K-12 school nutrition and foodservice industry. She brings brands to life through digital storytelling and helps guide the social media strategy that strengthens their presence and impact online.
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