'Showing the best of what the district has to offer': MSBSD providing housing, food to Arctic Winter Games athletes

Spring break begins for students and staff of the Matanuska Susitna Borough School District (MSBSD) starting Thursday, March 7. And when the classrooms shut for the students, work will be well underway as several schools were be transformed into different ‘villages’ for the athletes coming to the Arctic Winter Games.

“This is no small task, converting classrooms into dorms and the gymnasiums into athletic activity centers,” says Katie Gardner, Deputy Superintendent of Business and Operations for MSBSD. She is also serving as an At-Large Director for the AWG Board of Directors.

Six schools, including Wasilla High School, Wasilla Middle School, Colony High School, Colony Middle School, Palmer Junior Middle School, and Palmer High School, will be quickly turned into dorms for the athletes, courtesy of the hard work of AWG volunteers.

“Volunteers will be putting everything together, including the construction of the beds, bringing in mattresses and laying out the bedding. This couldn’t be done without the volunteers.”

Gardner says that the schools have made some improvements to show the best of what the district has to offer.

“There has been a lot of work to the bathrooms, the gyms, and other spaces to ensure the safety and comfort of the athletes. The AWG has needs for a short period of time, but it takes a lot of time to host.”

On top of providing dorm spaces and athletic activity centers, MSBSD Nutrition Services will also be providing menus and food to the athletes.

“The talented Food Services team has been working for over a year to create dishes that will meet the nutritional needs for the athletes while also being delicious,” says Gardner.

She says that they have every confidence in the Food Services for the massive undertaking and have plenty of practice providing food throughout the district, and says that this has provided the staff a unique opportunity to create new and exciting meals.

“Many of the AWG events have been catered by Nutritional Services, and they have taken those opportunities to expand creatively the menus and see what people are enjoying and fine-tune everything. I think people are going to be pleasantly surprised by the menus.”

Gardner says that the MSBSD School Board has been instrumental in ensuring that this unique challenge of housing and feeding the 1000+ athletes expected to attend the Games is met.

“They extended spring break to ensure plenty of time to transition before the Games kickoff. They have been on board since the beginning.”

While the planning has been logistically complicated at times, meaning the staff and volunteers will have a lot of work to do in a short period of time, Gardner says there is a lot of excitement building for the Games.

“We hope and believe that there will be positive cultural and economic outcomes from hosting the Arctic Winter Games.”

AWG athletes will start arriving and the official Opening Ceremony will be held Sunday March 10 at the Menard Center in Wasilla, Alaska. For more information, please visit www.awg2024.org/