Community Chat

[abentley]

I am one of them. Preparing more meals than you can imagine for a staff of 4. All of us mothers, with kids at home.
Whether you agree or disagree for the program, right now many school nutrition staffs across the country are working on school sites, with tremendous numbers of meals that need to be prepared every single day. Double or triple of what their "normal" count might be. Most do not have sick leave nor eleigible to "work from home" like many school employees. 
These people are working tremendously hard, in difficult circumstances to feed shildren. 

[Sooner]

What bothers me is that I believe a lot of people that shouldn't be getting some of this aid are simply stealing from people who really need help--and there are a lot out there.

The fact that we just hand this out to any and every one is what I have trouble understanding.  I simply don't think it is right to do that.  We are not being good stewards--for lack of a better word. 

[Porcelain]

---

@Carmie wrote:

I have no problem with lunches...hot or cold for school age children.  I also would be in favor of including lunch for all children at no extra cost to their patients.

The problems I do have is that the children are being served junk.  Some, but not all food is very unhealthy and a lot of it gets trashed.  The kids won't eat it.

The food that comes into the school is of two different Varieties.  The first type is purchased, the second type is government issued.  They must not stored together and are kept seperate in the kitchen pantries.

Pizza that is purchased is usually eaten, but the government pizza has cheese on it that looks and acts like plastic.  The kids pick it off and toss it.  

The same with hamburgers.  The kids won't eat the government patties because there is gristle or something hard in it.

Why are we feeding children this slop?  Very little is homemade. Most is processed food.  The cook at the school where I volunteer is a really good cook.  She uses all of the left over veggies and meats to make a hearty soup, but she cannot serve it to the kids.  It is available for purchase by the teachers and staff only.  The kids get canned soup. 

Another issue I have is that the school district makes money on their lunch program.  Every year they publish their financial stats.  It is clearly noted that this is a money maker for the district.  Why?

Children who are eligible for free lunches must take a whole lunch.  Sometimes they bring a bagged lunch from home, but there is no drink.  So, they get a whole lunch, remove the milk and toss the rest into the trash.

School lunches should be better and include more wholesome foods.  Just because they serve raw veggies and fruit and have no salt shakers in sight does not make them healthy.

It is quite shocking to see all of the milk and food that is tossed every day uneaten and untouched.  It's not enough to offer hot lunches for kids if most of it is not eaten.

The whole program needs a big overhaul.

And while I am ranting, some parents need to get their butts out of bed and feed their kids.  many kids get themselves do go school by themselves.

We have two afternoon kindergarten students who get out of bed and come to school having no breakfast and no lunch with dirty faces.

They both get lunch at school because they are hungry...their older siblings get free lunch, so they are eligible too even though K kids do not get lunch at school.  I supposed their mothers sleep all day.

I'll bet they don't eat on weekends or when school isn't in session.

---

Someone did do that. And it got undone. And that's as specific as I can get about that.

[RollTide2008]

I’d say that some of you sound like really terrible people, but I’m already bored at home and don’t want to end up in QVC forum jail again.

[Porcelain]

---

@Sooner wrote:

What bothers me is that I believe a lot of people that shouldn't be getting some of this aid are simply stealing from people who really need help--and there are a lot out there.

The fact that we just hand this out to any and every one is what I have trouble understanding.  I simply don't think it is right to do that.  We are not being good stewards--for lack of a better word. 

---

Meh. I don't notice poor people asking affluent people to determine who the cheaters are. Why would they? We have just as many moral problems ourselves as a group. Every group contains grifter individuals, so if that discredits poor folks and programs it also discredits rich ones. It's not an argument for or against anything.

Luckily food is cheap, so it's one of the simplest things to give freely. No need to complicate it.

[deeva]

What about grandparents raising children because their adult kids are addicted to drugs and have lost custody of the children? This puts a tremendous financial burden on grandparents.

If a free lunch or take home meal keeps the children from going hungry, I'm all for it.

The United States is one of the most wasteful countries in the world.

[doxie1]

@Kachina624 

I grew up on peanut butter sandwiches as well.I did the hand me down clothes and no items like a cell phone. My phone was attached to the wall in the kitchen.

Things have changed since then in that is no longer the norm. I work in a school with 60% poverty. There is another 10 % that is in and out of poverty.

Our society is only as strong as our weakest links. Schools tend to want to do everything to provide the education so that the child can get out of poverty. It is daunting.

When you see a child getting food out of a trashcan it really haunts you.

I do think that people should learn to provide service hours to others to show everyone is working for society

I agree with the posters that talk about the high waste of food. We had that problem because we had a grant to provide meals for every student but they had to get the complete meal. They could not get just fruit or a beverage. There was a ton of food thrown out.

We were able to reduce it a lot by the teachers setting up a ice bath for unwanted milk and juice as well as a place for fruit. Any student could eat and drink all of that but could not take it out of the lunchroom.

We had our students have to complete service hours each semester so they felt like they were doing something for the meals.

Our meals are not always hot. 

We do not see the final product where our students are out of poverty because they have moved up to the next school. We have seen data that shows 85 % are employed at age 18. For us that is a major increase.

doxie

[suzyQ3]

These shifty, lazy people are such easy targets, like low-hanging fruit.

I'd take an imperfect safety net for them any day over coddling our most wealthy.

I'm very sad to see some of these responses.

[novamc1]

I had summer jobs working for the U.S. government  while being home from college.

One job was  in the USDA School Lunch Division (working with home economists and dietitians who designed  menus) and another summer in the USDA Food Stamp Division (working among auditors who oversaw state food stamp programs nationwide).

I believe that the practice of offering ALL school kids some type of free meals began when someone recognized that many  kids would feel stigmatized for participating and being recognized as poor.

My kids didn't get nuthin' to eat for free.  We paid full-freight for their lunches.  Occasionally, I sent them to school with homemade stuff, because they hated much of what was available in the cafeteria.

[Trinity11]

---

@Porcelain wrote:

If you judge for worthiness before being generous, you can also expect to be judged with the same leniency for your flaws that you showed others. And you are not perfect.

Begrudging children and poor people food makes you look impossibly small. I don't care what your excuses are. It's small and unworthy and you can be far better than that.

---

Yes, yet no threads about why aren't we taxing the rich? Instead nit-picking a few hot meals given to a hungry child. The very thought of saving a few bucks denying a child a meal hits me as coming from an entitled human being devoid of a heart and soul...