Do our school systems understand that this might very well be the ONLY food that a child gets all day? Do they understand that the parents probably owe the debt to the lunch lady because things are tight at home?
We see the starving children on TV commercials daily, wanting us to donate money to feed them. My heart breaks for them, it really does, but did you know that we have starving children right here in the good old US of A? And it's not just in the Appalachian mountains or New York City or in homeless shelters. It's children in your town, maybe even on your street, in YOUR neighborhood. We have children coming home from school to an empty house because mom and dad are having to work to try and make ends meet, yet the cabinets in the kitchen are empty.
You can call it bad money management or whatever but face it, times are hard and they're not getting any better. Yes, there is public assistance but that doesn't pay for everything and honestly, I'm sick of seeing the memes on Facebook about drug testing welfare recipients. Yes, drugs are a problem and I do agree that a lot of welfare recipients are addicts but we can't punish the kids that are receiving these benefits because their mom and/or dad have messed up. And if you think they should go to foster homes, that's not going to help them much.
The so called system in America just sucks. Kids are slipping through the cracks because of budget cut backs. These cut backs mean less DSS/CPS workers and bad situations aren't getting looked into.
Back to my original thought....schools are throwing away food that could go to these children whose parents can't pay for their lunch. What is the point of throwing it away? Isn't that just wasting it? Wouldn't it be better to let a hungry kid eat that food instead of sending it to a landfill?
If that ever happened to one of my kids, you'd have a mad mama on your hands, Mrs. Hairnet. Just sayin'.
