The school lunchroom. We all have memories of mystery meat, grey hamburgers, and feeling a reason to live when the calendar showed PIZZA - that rectangular wonder of the plastic tray.
We all also have memories of watching classmates worry about having enough money to buy even the most basic items offered, or hoping their account still had funds left in it because they were hungry. Perhaps you were one of those children.
Even as a young child, I understood what I was seeing. The fear, the embarrassment, the desperate looks as classmates would indulge in lunchboxes laden with sandwiches, Twinkies, a thermos full of Kool Aid. The pained expressions as they just took a seat and drank milk slowly because a tiny carton was all they could afford. I routinely shared what I had in my Holly Hobby padded lunchbox, even taking to sneaking extra food in at home for them.
I was 8 years old and those memories stay with me to this day.
It was not their fault. They had zero control over their parents' finances. Yet they paid the price in hunger pangs, mocking, and an inability to focus throughout the day.
Fast forward 45 years and nothing has changed. My own kids saw this dynamic play out during their school years. In college they knew kids who showed up for any campus event simply because there might be free food. Studies have shown that a full 20% of students at a four year college are food insecure. Community college students? A full 25%.
Younger children stats are equally heartbreaking - 1 in 6 children in this country live with hunger daily. A full 12 million children - 17.9% - are in food insecure homes. In the summer that number shoots up to 6 out of 7 children endure hunger because the free or reduced price school lunch they may receive vaporizes. And before anyone starts with the oh-so-compassionate "Well, their parents shouldn't have had them." or "Well, their parents should get an extra job." - STOP. Children cannot eat bootstraps. And they sure as hell did not ask to be born (yet you demanded they were, you proud pro-lifer, you.)
While there are some children who are caught in homes where their parent or parents are irresponsible and neglectful, that is the exception, not the rule of poverty. Most of these children DO have parents who kill themselves in two or three jobs to try to provide even the most basic of needs - a roof over their head, a couple pieces of clothing, and some food. Those parents often going without themselves in order that their child receive a little bit more to eat.
As for the whole "They shouldn't have had the kids" mindset? One, that fetus you screamed about being born is here and needs cared for, and two, who the hell are you to judge? This notion so firmly rooted in the black souls and vile maws of people who think nothing bad can ever befall them. How about you, with your three kids, two cars, and McMansion in the burbs? What happens to you when you lose your job, cannot find another, and suddenly are selling a car, moving to an apartment, and having to wear sunglasses into your community food bank so no one sees you. It happens. Should we scoff at you, say you shouldn't have had those three kids?
NO.
More and more we see stories make national headlines when schools threaten their students and parents because of struggling to pay a lunch bill. We see strangers step up and anonymously pay off an entire school district's roster of delinquent payments because there are decent souls who understand all of this - especially the part where IT IS NOT THE CHILD'S FAULT.
The most recent story to come up this past week, however, is about the ugliest tactic yet employed by a school district.
In Pennsylvania, the Wyoming West School District has sent letters to parents threatening their children will be removed from their homes.
"Your child has been sent to school every day without money and without breakfast and/or lunch. This is a failure to provide your child with proper nutrition and you can be sent to Dependency Court for neglecting your child's right to food," the July 9 letter reads. "Please remit payment as soon as possible to avoid being reported to the proper authorities."
What in the actual hell?
Yes, the school district currently has roughly $20,000 in delinquent payments. Which to be honest, spread out over the number of schools it oversees, breaks down to far smaller numbers. But threatening a parent with having their child removed to foster care because they have $75.25 outstanding?
The letters were signed by Joseph Muth, director of federal programs for the Wyoming Valley West School District, an obviously stellar human being.
The callousness, the recklessness, the abject cruelty involved here is unforgivable. This is the equivalent of feeding the already hungry parents a bowl of emotional ebola.
These are their children. As if the parents don't already suffer enough struggling to take care of them, to have school authorities threaten to tear apart their families? Look, many families may not have the resources of a lot of us, but they they do not exist in some emotionless vacuum. They love their children as passionately as do I. They lose sleep worrying about their children. They are proud of their children, want the best for them, and are willing to do anything to protect them. Flat out stating that they are bad parents, worthy of being reported to CPS to have them taken from them because of a small lunch balance? Inexcusable.
They live with enough fear without insensitive pricks piling on.
Those who actually understand this and work within the system have been very vocal in their condemnations.
"Foster care is to be utilized only when absolutely needed — when a child has been abused, is in need or has suffered a tragedy," said Luzerne County Manager David Petri. "Our foster care system is NOT to be utilized to scare parents into paying school lunch bills."
And Joanne Van Saun, Luzerne County Children and Youth Services Executive Director, stated, "It’s a total misrepresentation, a gross misrepresentation of what our agency does. It’s just not true. We do not remove children from families for unpaid bills."
After being publicly outed for this heinous act, the school district has planned to send a "softer" letter out to those parents. Softer, huh? What? Just going to threaten them with their children being tarred and feathered out on the playground? Put in stocks out by the school flagpole?
This kind of crap is why hunger remains such an embarrassing thing for so many. Because those with full bellies who never lay head to pillow with a growling stomach or worrying about how they will feed their children in the morning, have zero idea or interest in understanding the plight of those who do.
It reeks of privilege. Anytime you carelessly write off the concerns or treatment of someone, it is because it does not touch you, so it must not be a real thing. Not trans? Why should you care about bathroom safety for THEM? Not black? Why let you heart beat faster when you get pulled over for speeding? Not hungry? Why concern yourself with the fact that so many are? They are obviously doing something wrong to deserve to be hungry.
Quite frankly, school lunches should be free. If we can constantly build new football cathedrals for high school students, we can certainly provide a hot meal for the kids. To hell with Friday Night Lights. How about Fare Over Football? It all comes down to what people with privilege view as important for the tax dollars they have to spend.
I have no doubt that someone will again step forward to pay the $20,000. And that will be wonderful. But it will not fix the problem that 1 in 6 children go to school hungry every single day.
Just some rancid food for thought as you sit down to your Sunday brunch and bottomless mimosa.
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It truly does take a village. You may not be able to afford $20,000 to wipe a slate clean, but consider donating what you can to No Kid Hungry
In a country as prosperous as ours, 1 in 6 is shameful.
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