HISD Construction and Facility Services managers showed their gratitude for the hard work of each team member on Wednesday during the department’s annual appreciation luncheon. Employees were treated to a catered barbecue lunch served by managers and prizes, including gift cards and prize baskets, were handed out.
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“It’s an excellent idea for the morale and for the uplifting of the [employees],” said CFS employee Jesse Barraza. “This event gives everyone such a sense of accomplishment that we’re really contributing to the efforts of working as one unit.”
HISD Board of Education trustees Rhonda Skillern-Jones and Anna Eastman also were on hand to help serve lunch to the department, which currently has 2,050 employees.
“Making food, serving and eating together is one of the greatest ways to express love and appreciation,” Eastman told the group. “I know you guys work so hard, and you are so critical to people like me who know our kids will walk through the doors of HISD every day knowing that they are going to be in safe, clean and pleasant spaces.”
General Manager of Facility Services Brian Busby says the luncheon gives employees the opportunity to gather as a family while reminding them how much of a great impact they make each day across the district.
“If they didn’t do what they did, we wouldn’t have cool, warm or clean schools for our children to be able to learn,” Busby said. “I feel it’s my social as well as employee responsibility to make sure if we can’t always give them material things, we can at least take five minutes of the day, month or year to say thank you.”