Caroline Trinder

Meet Caroline

Seeing 2,500 evacuees lined up outside your school cafeteria is not something K-12 foodservice professionals are trained to handle. But in 2017, that’s exactly the challenge Hurricane Irma presented to Caroline Trinder. At the time, it was considered the most powerful hurricane on record in the open Atlantic and the most intense hurricane to strike the continental United States since Hurricane Katrina. In her role as Sarasota County Schools' area supervisor of food and nutrition services, Caroline and just four other staff members did everything they could to ensure her school’s facility (1 of 13 open in the area) was open to feed the community.

Caroline has since moved back to her home state of Maine to be closer to family and serve as the director of food and nutrition services for Regional School Unit 23 in Old Orchard Beach. When nominating Caroline, her colleague, Whitney Thornton, called out Caroline's commitment to her students, “Caroline is a #trayblazer! With her fresh and innovative ideas, new salads, nutrition education in the classroom and so much more, she's a registered dietician who leads by example.”