Lunch Bunch Buddies

By. Teresa Marchant

This post is dedicated to my lunch buddies. I’ve eaten lunch with these colleagues for most of my career.  We’ve celebrated milestone birthdays and other events, mourned deaths, welcomed new family members, and supported each other through happy as well as trying times. There is something we are always looking forward to which helps the school year fly by.

This group knows how to organize events from surprise parties to coordinating Halloween costumes, monthly potluck lunches or arrange a food delivery from a local restaurant . Most recently, they threw me a Grandma shower. I have everything I need to read stories to my new grandson in a basket. Holidays are fun with this group, too. My top three Halloween costume ideas over years have been Minions, Toy Story characters, and Alice in Wonderland. 

While some teachers in my district  enjoy their 40-min duty free lunch (thanks to union negotiations) by themselves. I get that you need down time, but not me I prefer being social. I love being able to laugh together during the day and it helps me feel more connected to my colleagues. During lunch time, we try not to discuss work things, but rather develop our friendship by discussing other topics.

We laugh at silly things like not knowing how to say “ quinoa” correctly when it became popular. We are honest and tell each other when we have something in our teeth or our noses. We even share our lunches if someone left theirs at home on the counter. We celebrate each other, for example, one member of our group was recently nominated for a teacher of the year award. While several in the group are looking at retiring within the next few years, we still have each other’s back. Our lunch group has and will continue to evolve. Through it all, this group has been my career life raft. I couldn’t have faced these past challenging years without them! They have helped keep me afloat and have pointed me in the right direction through recent educational storms. This is a special shout-out to my lunch bunch colleagues- thank you for your support. Oh by the way, who’s bringing treats next month?