St. Michael Indian School stepped out to help the Navajo Nation Community, which has been particularly hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The school has helped feed the community during the coronavirus lockdown, the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) said.

St. Michael helps feed the community by providing weekday breakfast and hot lunches for students and other community children. However, the coronavirus has disrupted the effort when an employee tragically tested positive, NRS reports.

The school has utilized its remote learning program due to all the students being stuck at home during the lockdown. Tazbah Yazzie, who is the SMIS 32-year-old principal, tells the NCR that the school is lonely without the students.

"It's sad. It's lonely," Yazzie told NCR. "We are used to seeing our kids every day, seeing their smiles, their faces. … Now, it's very, very different. I don't hear their chatter, their laughter. It's just silent. I miss them."

[Navajos] just don't live like the rest of America lives," Dot Teso, president of St. Michael Indian School, told NCR. "Homes are small, with grandma, aunt and uncle living with the rest of the family. … It's very hard to curb the spread of something like coronavirus in these conditions."

Families in the Navajo Nation have to leave the reservation to buy groceries in Gallup, New Mexico or Flagstaff, Arizona. To get water requires trucks.

The school started a drive-by meal service on weekdays to give students and other local kids breakfast and hot lunch. A staff member’s positive test for coronavirus forced a week-long closure of the program. Teso said the school spent that week disinfecting the food prep areas and check on other staff members’ health.

"Our food service manager began to cry when she found out we had to stop the meal program," she told NCR. "We're just in hyper-sensitive mode, wanting to do all we can."

The drive-by meal program resumed May 4.

Yazzie and teachers work to keep their students on track with their education. Teachers create three-week lesson plans for parents to pick up as they bring back their children’s completed homework.

Zoom meetings and phone calls are how they stay in contact with students and their parents, with Instagram videos helping them stay connected with students.