When the state of Rhode Island announced that poor kids whose parents haven’t paid their school lunch bills would get jelly sandwiches instead of a hot meal, Chobani stepped forward and announced that it would pay their bills. THANK YOU!!! This is the kind of corporate largesse I applaud.
Oops sorry I’m not able to edit my previous comment. It’s Warwick, Rhode Island, not the entire state.
This is one of my pet peeves. Children from poorer families can get fre or reduced price lunches. My kids qualified for a year at one point. Reduced price is .40 per lunch. So $2 per week. The form is one page and doesn’t require verification. All the schools my kids were in used PIN numbers so no stigma. The kids running up balances are middle class kids whose parents can’t be bothered to pay their bill. After two reminders the kids were limited to the sandwich choice of entree and also got the rest of the meal. My kids ate sandwiches for lunch all the time. It is not a punishment! Fill out a form, pay for your kid’s lunch, or send them with a lunch! How hard is that? How are schools supposed to handle dead beat parents? If we want to provide everyone with lunch raise taxes to do it. In the meantime stop demonizing the schools for trying to run a meal program.
If kids have to stay at school for lunch make all the lunches free.
Free or reduced price lunches are available to families up to 185% of the federal poverty line.
A single mom with one kid who makes $29K a year doesn’t qualify. Too rich. Now, maybe you want to say that woman is middle class and bursting with money, and if she somehow can’t come up with her kid’s lunch money after paying for the rent, the utilities, the phone, the groceries, her kid’s afterschool child care, her transportation to work, and her and the kid’s medical expenses, that makes her an unfit parent.
I, on the other hand, think she just doesn’t have much money. Moreover I believe that shaming her kid is contemptible.
That would be a different kind of “middle class” from those with incomes ten times that amount but complaining about not getting college financial aid anywhere or about taxes…
I am not opposed to providing free lunches for everyone and funding it. I am well aware of the income limits, because, as I said, my children qualified at one point. And when we went just over the limit, I did not have them buy the lunches from school because it was much more expensive than the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I could send with them. You think limiting their entree choice to a sunflower butter and jelly sandwich is shaming. I disagree. That sandwich is available to every child every day. It is not a special thing if you are in arrears. I’m for universal health care, and more subsidized and affordable housing, a living wage, and even lunch for everyone. But I don’t think it’s helpful to frame this as the schools being awful when they are just trying to get parents to, well, parent. I would love to see some data on who has these big lunch bills and isn’t paying them. The assumption is that it is poor children. I don’t think it is. I think it’s parents who don’t pay attention to what their children are choosing for lunch and promptly paying for it.
Serving children jelly sandwiches because their parents are behind on lunch payments isn’t a punishment? Then why do it? Why not offer turkey sandwiches or grilled cheese instead of something with zero nutritional value?
Sunflower butter has nutritional value. The media was incorrect when they said it was a jelly sandwich. Also, a household of 4 with an income of $46000 qualifies for reduced-price lunch. They are at the 38th percentile for household income in the US. If that’s not middle, what is?
I’ve seen way too many cwappy parents to want to punish any kid for their birth lottery draw. Some parents won’t fill out the forms (gov’t doesn’t need to know my business). Some parents drink/smoke/use substances and waste the money they have so there isn’t enough except right around payday - maybe. Some think the lottery or casinos are a better investment. Some simply don’t give a hoot if their kids eat or not.
Meanwhile, some kids go hungry often skipping lunch rather than letting anyone else know (at least at the high school level). I’ve paid some out of pocket teaching the “Pay it Forward” concept, but I can’t do what Chobani did. Several other teachers keep some snack foods like pretzels available to any kid who wants them. Kudos to them all for caring. Regardless of the reason, kids don’t need punishment while hoping to make better parents out of lousy (or poor) ones.
For reference, the following lists the income limits for free and reduced price lunch:
NYC public schools recently decided to give free lunch to everyone. Around 70% of students in the district previously got free or reduced price lunch.
I applaud Chobani and understand the attitude of those that have been taken advantage of. My son used to let friends charge on his account because they didn’t have any $ left on theirs, yet I know mom and dad are the lawyers and other professionals that just don’t take the time to replinish their online lunch funds. It’s quite easy to do today, you don’t even have to remember to write a check. He would never ask for the money back but the kids who were hungry didn’t hesitate to ask for a “loan”. We had the same problem with some band parents - you don’t mind helping those in need but when they drive up in a late model Lexus in their tennis outfits and won’t volunteer to fundraise, it is quite frustrating.
(tweet) Nice move @Chobani !
According to CNN, parents are getting the notices for balances as low as 5 cents. And a local business owner tried to pay off the debts but the district refused to take the check. Some people are unbelievable.
What got to me is that the district refused to take the business owner’s offer.
Obviously, a lot of talk about this in New England. Apparently, this was not one of the school districts most in need of this sort of support. The bills were not just poor kids. I looked for the greater detail about this and all that pops up is the PR. Maybe someone else can find more.
I just got a letter saying that my D19 had a leftover balance of a little over $6 in her lunch account. She has not bought school lunch since she tried it a few times in 1st grade so I was surprised to see that. They gave us a few options - have them send us the money, put it towards another sibling or donate it to the person with the biggest outstanding balance. I thought that was a great idea and donated it, hopefully lots of people did the same.
the kids who truly need the lunches are getting them for free, so this is not talking about very impoverished kids.
the school district was too generous in allowing families to rack up credit, and then not want to pay. I think the sandwiches are supposed to be a reminder to the parents to pay up for what your kid has eaten.
This only happens if the parents fill out the forms. Guidance tries to get them to do so, but it’s illegal to forge their signatures if they don’t want to do it themselves. There are honestly parents who don’t feel feeding their kids outweighs much else.
Then, if one doesn’t fit into that category, but has plenty of money and wastes it or chooses not to spend it on Junior they also fit into the lousy parent category. Lousy and lack of money are not correlations. It’s still not right to punish the kids for lousy parenting. Fine the parents or something else if needed, but feed the kids.
I chose Chobani at the grocery store yesterday due to this! In my opinion, no matter the family income level, school districts should be dealing with adults on financial matters, not dinging the kids at lunch time.