lucyposhaheidi
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There are a lot of children in our country who only get meals at school. That is why many schools have expanded to provide breakfasts and even dinners. But when the weekend comes, the meals stop and some children go hungry until Monday. An estimated 13 million children in the United States live in food-insecure homes. One school district in Indiana is trying to come up with a solution, right in the cafeteria. Elkhart Schools is teaming up with the non-profit Cultivate to take left-over food from the cafeteria and repackaging it for students to take home on Fridays. The pilot program is providing 20 students with a backpack with eight individual frozen meals every Friday until the end of the school year. There are similar programs elsewhere. On Long Island, in New York, a program called Blessings in a Backpack provides food on the weekends for students who might otherwise go hungry. The school system reportedly wants to expand the program in the future.
BobbyMillsfromAChorusLine
We have a program at my school. Kids who are in need get 2 breakfasts, 2 lunches, and snacks every Friday to take home. All non perishable
MyNameIsRichardCS54
"There are a lot of children in our country who only get meals at school." Checks date, not April 1, WTF America!?
ilovepieroginsteameddumplings
Great idea but sad that it's needed
KrystenRitterEyeRoll
This gives you faith in humanity? Its necessity destroys mine
firehawkcultist
Worked in a catering place that also had a grab and go buffet. I slowly went numb to the amount of wasted food we just threw away now Im sad
RazReverie
Why did 39 people down vote poor kids getting free food? Did the idea of poor kids eating not sit well with 39 people? Really?!?!
TLR01
The shear fact that in the same country, especially US, there are hungry children and an over abundance of wasted food, is inexcusable.
gypsykingkiller
It's honestly fucking bullshit that the land of the free is also land of the hungry child.
nero4ty2
Tons of systemic issues leading to it
Andilee
This is amazing!!! Should be done by all schools. I some nights didnt have dinner at home, and I'm sure there are 1000s just like how I was.
LuoBaoen
LET'S DO THIS EVERYWHERE. I hate wasted food, and it's a GIGANTIC problem in the U.S. Both on the back end and front end.
belovedlover
Interesting. But I am saddened that there actually is children who are not getting food at home :\
ottotravel
I taught disadvantaged kids for years, quite common. I would keep hard boiled eggs, pb. and crackers etc. in my classroom.
Eunoterp
Where's the pizzabread?
mialynneb
We have a 'food rescue' box at school. Kiddos that don't want things put them in it at lunch. It's supposed to go to shelters, but 1/
mialynneb
we have so many hungry kiddos, they take it as a second lunch or to take home. So many of our students rely on school to get breakfast 2/
mialynneb
and lunch. I'll talk to my principal tomorrow about what it would entail to do this for our corporation. I'm assuming I'll be shot down.
CannibalisticHedgehog
This is good. If I'm right then supermarkets in France above a certain size legally have to give away food to charities instead of throw it.
macandfriesandpizza
You are correct. And I think this should be the same everywhere.
CannibalisticHedgehog
It should be a global thing. Food banks wouldn't have to struggle for supplies for meals ever again. The homeless might actually eat.
NewToTheEnterwbs
Meanwhile they have food shaming in other schools, when the kid runs out of $ they throw his/her food in the trash in front of everyone.
userfriendly19777
These cafeteria workers should have their bonuses burned in front of them.
wanderingsibyl
I’ve had this happen. Super embarrassing. Then they make you go ask the head lunch lady for pb sandwich, no jelly. That was in the 90s 1/
wanderingsibyl
so I hope/think things have changed. 2/2
nero4ty2
Seriously? My kids schools just send us notices to add money to their account, nobody goes hungry
EllaFynoe
from 2017 https://money.cnn.com/2017/05/15/news/economy/school-lunch-shaming-congress-bill/index.html
kittyanya
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/30/well/family/lunch-shaming-children-parents-school-bills.html
benjwolf04
.
nero4ty2
Well that’s disgusting
buttbuttpartywagon
Intermittent fasting is a great way to keep in shape.
AdmiralBuzzallday
Optimism
ihavethelowground
Gandhism
EpsilonBeSmallerZero
Yeah, keeping the shape of a midget. Children eating (good) enough is a requirement for their height and strength, at least.
buttbuttpartywagon
I think it's entirely possible to maintain a healthy lifestyle with it
CthulhusGreasyBallsack
There's a difference between fasting and malnutrition.
Roland191145
proileri
Around here there is a service for buying leftover restaurant lunch food, usually for 5 bucks/portion.
keyblader1985
Okay. But why the FUCK would I pay five dollars for fucking leftovers?
Maggiesperson
$5 is way more than these kids can afford.
unicornsuperhero
Would you mind sending elaborating? I’m a counselor and many of my clients are food insecure. Thanks!
SpicyMonkey
Services link restaurants to consumers, costs less as the food would be thrown out. In my area we have 'toogooodtogo'
benjwolf04
.
proileri
Yep this. Restaurants put "have 5 plates of this lunch food left over for $5/ea 3-6pm" into a service, customer browses local offers on app.
unicornsuperhero
Thank you for the info, I’ll look into it!
WorkerLurker
I don’t know who you are but you became one of my heroes today, I’m proud of you that you care so much stranger.
unicornsuperhero
Why thank you, you just made my day!!
userfriendly19777
feeding hungry children for free!. That's socialism.
StanleyCameron
Not Free, Paid For With Taxes.
Kittybitters
I was a poor kid. Mom worked 3 jobs and went to the food bank, never enough food. I got free lunch and signed up for a volunteer program 1/3
Kittybitters
at my school, a select number of poor kids could spend their recess packing breakfasts for the next day. We got to take home food 2/2
Kittybitters
as “payment” for helping. We usually got to bring home 4-5 sackfuls of breakfast made up of the leftover cereals, ect. 3/3
dorenavant
@OP, this is good stuff. There were kids in Nevada taking home ketchup packets to mix with hot water to make tomato soup. Very sad.
JupitersWitch
Their parents suck. I dealt with welfare a lot and many parents were too strung out on drugs to even provide food.
dorenavant
If they have money for drugs they *should* be able to put food on the table. But you are right, the reality isn’t always cut and dry.
LobsterBandito
Did anyone else have those weird pizza slices where the cheese was like rubber but still somehow “great” tasting?
itsybitsyspider
That's "unhealthy" now and a lot of schools are trying to get rid of it.
DakotaWolf
I get all the good comments about this, but it shouldn't need to happen, greed is the only reason why. No one need go hungry that's barbaric
wonderwink
Food insecurity should not be a thing in wealthy countries
KaliDaCat
30 to 35% of all food in the US goes to trash. I applaud this initiative.
Gettingold
Welcome to the land of plenty. Kids can't a Ford healthcare or food. But a tax cut for the rich, no worries.
BlackDeathZombieSwede
The greatest first world country in the world /s
HowNowBrownCowBowWow
It’s not rich peoples responsibility to feed others children. Of course they can volunteer to do so. But that role falls on the parents.
benjwolf04
It's every decent person's responsibility to help feed hungry children. No one gets to pick their parents
Gettingold
I help as many people as I can. Its everyone's responsibility to be a good human.
HowNowBrownCowBowWow
You’re absolutely right. I just disagree that government should be the foundation for driving that responsibility.
TuggSpeedmann
Some children go hungry until Monday? And where is child protective services??
PosthumousExile
Some of us don't say anything
DancinNinja
Intentional neglect and unintentional starvation are not the same thing.
Comet260
There's a LOT of fuckin' poor people in this country who sometimes have to choose between food and medicine.
dinobots56
CPS is a Damn joke. And this isn't neglect.
SciencePetsComputers
CPS tries to keep kids with the parents, or at least relatives.Studies show that not doing so causes it's own damage, even in the best(1/2)
SciencePetsComputers
Foster home conditions. It comes down to weather staying with the parents or going to the foster home will do the most damage.(2/3)
SciencePetsComputers
The best soulution is to have the family work with a social worker to improve conditions(3/3)
darynu
child protective services would only get involved if the childs parent or guardian is INTENTIONALLY denying them access to food.
TheifofZ
When the family can't afford food, it's different then when the family is starving the kid. This shit ain't Harry Potter. 1/2
TheifofZ
Shockingly, the amount of poor in america is rising due to a low minimum wage and high cost of living. (Min. Wage is 1/2 what it should be.)
P0mp0u2P1l4t3
Welcome to the real shitty world, if this is news for you.
EMTMarv
Being poor is not a crime...
strugglesnuggler
Funny, we sure as shit treat it like one.
cadesama
Where's the CPS funding? The SNAP funding?
SlothMasterJ
You have to meet specific requirements for SNAP, it's not just given to everyone.
penzick
I don't know about CPS but Trump cut SNAP last year and his budget proposal cuts it again for 2019.
thorkild91
Wouldn’t it make more sense to just increase access to food and liveable minimum wages rather than take kids away?
P0mp0u2P1l4t3
No because not all of the parents eating are working or spending their money correctly. There would still be a large portion of starving chi
itsybitsyspider
Dont' know why you got downvoted. A lot of people on assistance don't know how to manage their money properly and spend it all at --
itsybitsyspider
-- expensive convenient stores.
thorkild91
EBT doesn’t need to be the only form of assistance. Food banks currently aren’t necessarily the best option so that could be improved upon
Callistan
So we should punish all struggling families because a few are irresponsible?
P0mp0u2P1l4t3
Woah calm down Sally. I didn't say don't do it. I just said I don't think it would fix the problem. It would help but it wouldn't cure it.
crann
Shhh.... no no no.... Provide assistance? ARE YOU DAFT MAN!? God gave everyone two good hands and boot straps! Start tugging!
Thisusernameisalreadyinyouse
If CPS took every kid away from parents who couldn't afford to feed them, the foster system would be overburdened by thousands, and it's (1
knurse92
HUNDREDS of thousands
Thisusernameisalreadyinyouse
Already at max capacity, under-funded, and under-regulated. Besides, just because a parent with 2-3 jobs can't afford food doesn't mean (2
Thisusernameisalreadyinyouse
They aren't a good parent. It means there's something wrong with the economy. (3
MoodyBlueGirl
Too be fair, food should come pretty high on the budget hierarchy. So if your kids are going hungry, theres a bigger problem.
toastedspikes
Rent, mortgage or debt is usually higher.
grklein
If one has to choose between paying rent or going hungry for a couple of days, most people would choose having a roof over your head.
crann
You can't generalize here. Shit happens to people and debt gets out of hand, credit company puts a lien on the house and bam $0 incoming /
Landroid55
You're living in a dream world if you think there are no kids in America who go hungry every night.
JaxJamesTheTenaciousTurtle
What a dystopia, Jesus
TuggSpeedmann
I have no doubt some kids go hungry, but over the fucking weekend is child abuse
MsMath23
I went through this when I was younger, teachers would give me sandwiches for the weekends. Help to end the 68 hours of hunger! See...
MsMath23
https://www.end68hoursofhunger.org/
glaug
That's what you get when the economy is constructed around funneling money away from us without regard for who it hurts, even children.
Spooner1
I was one of these kids. We straight up didnt have enough food to go around. In grade school I had 3 meals a week at home and all my other 1
Spooner1
2, all my other meals came from school programs like this
GeekyWhiteBoy
Lack of fair wages and sex ed lead to that. It's incredibly and sadly common and an unspoken social issue in politics
unicornsuperhero
But it happens every day.
gamblingpoet
Underfunded social services. Everyone raises a shit storm when neglect slips through the cracks, but no one wants to help support them. Plus
gamblingpoet
worker burnout is high. Imagine having to deal with child abuse and neglect on a day to day basis? I can't do that.
LieutenantScarecrow
I went to school with kids that were that poor. When they had to choose between rent/utilities over food, they didn't choose food.
LieutenantScarecrow
It's better to go hungry for a weekend than to be evicted, no matter how much you love your kids
Thisusernameisalreadyinyouse
It happened to most of my friends from elementary through highschool, but that's just normal for lower-middle class kids from what I know.
KPopGirlKimi
I think you mean lower lower class, because being that poor is not even lower middle class
toastedspikes
You need disposable income to be middle class.
WireHairLongDoggie
That's not middle class if they are starving nights and weekends
D33RLORD
America goggles
misstwaters
It's mind blowing in this age of technology, that we can't figure out how to get all excess out of date, etc. Food, to hungry humans! Shame
TroelsyTwo
I'm thinking those parents would just trade that food for drugs.
nero4ty2
It’s been figured out, funding it is another issue, not enough outlets for all the food or a way to transport it
preaction
We have deliberately not figured it out.
seckzie
Thing is work and poverty is used as a means of motivation and control. We could get rid of all that bullshit, but people in power uses it.
JupitersWitch
Poverty is a result of westernization.
HowNowBrownCowBowWow
Cause poverty doesn’t exist in India...
JupitersWitch
It didn't until a metric for measuring poverty was introduced. People were better off before England.
HieronymousFlex
We could definitely figure it out, it's not a problem of capability. We choose not to help, which I think is worse.
GreenTeaParty
We can. Easily. But it's the political will. The GOP repeatedly cuts school food programs. Not the school, or the lack of $ it's the GOP.
harley350
Crazy how there are people so disgustingly rich...with 3000 dollar shoes and 3000 dollar purses and there are kids going hungry
Kuvajainen
It always shocks me how different other countries are. In here school lunch is free and basically an all you can eat buffet of healthy and
Kuvajainen
Nutritious food. There's also a social system that provides everyone with a small income so everyone at least has the chance to survive.
HowNowBrownCowBowWow
Does your country have 327 million residents?
Fishy820
Wait till someone sues the school district because of it.
HoboStabWound
Hang whatever lawyer take the case. We can't keep letting sue happy lawyers make everything suck.
Veggisaurus
But why?
Weblord
Maybe shops that miss out on sales of chips and soda as a result..?
eetsumkaus
because it's easier to buy food with money than it is to beg for it
notanevilgenius
Food safety probably, remember a few weeks ago there was a news article about a college student that died after eating pasta that hadn't 1/2
notanevilgenius
Been stored or reheated properly? High chance of that happening here. 2/2
UonlyThinkyourDead
So fuckin true
LivingCactus
RhoadMon
Nestlé will.. because, you know, "food, like water, is a privilege, not a right".
SwayzeBrandoTimberlake
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Emerson_Good_Samaritan_Act_of_1996
ilovecosmetics
I had no idea. Thanks for info.
Lagomorph3447
Or adults in the home eat the meals because they are hungry
Fishy820
That is a dick move if they would
Maggiesperson
Lousy excuse for not giving it to the kids.
Lagomorph3447
50 yrs ago high school lunch was 35 cents. A couple of male students helped the custodian sweep halls and rooms for daily lunch then.
Maggiesperson
And that helps elementary school students how?
EducationalPsychInTraining
They would probably have to opt in. That's how most food programs in schools work. That way they know how many meals to have.
cheeky88
Shhh don't tell the Republicans.
jennym123
The worst part is that it's going to be, like *one* person who would ruin it for thousands.
Sillyleafatwork
I think the worst part is that there will be a few kids who get this but whose parents eat it and leave their kid hungry.
SR3711
Was just thinking that. Sad.
itsybitsyspider
That's what I was thinking. A lot of those homes, the parents don't care enough for their child to make sure they're fed.
CthulhusGreasyBallsack
Yeah but I like to think that most of them wouldn't do that, and it's worth giving food to them either way
EVILtheKAT
I hate that you’re right.
h3lblad3
Good Samaritan laws and Duty to Rescue. I bet a lawyer would have an easy time protecting the school.
Fishy820
There are people and entities (business, religious groups) that are sued and gone to court for not having permits. Which I understand
Fishy820
but make them pay to give free meals is crazy. St Louis a pastor sued the city for fining him.
Duendes
Those laws aren't as solid as one would think, especially since it's civil lawsuits you'd have to worry about
HornoTostador
What’s Duty to Rescue?
cinderspires
tell that to supermarket which gave away unused fruits, vegetables and food to homeless and homeless sued the shit out of supermarket
ThanosWasNotWrong
hi hello do you have a source or are you talking out of your ass?
YouHaveToTellMeIfYoureARobocop
The laws that give a defense to sueing require the donations be given to a non profit not just given out to those in need. (As i understood)
CthulhusGreasyBallsack
No source?
Allthegoodnamesweretakenbeckygod
Source please.
ElusiveBastar
Never been a successful case. There are enough rules that help that. Not even sure if there have been attempts to do so
oskar4498
You're right. Look for the sources yourself they're out there. You can give away all the food you want till someone gets sick.
oskar4498
First thing we learned in serv-safe certification. It always sounds like a great idea but no one ever does it or they do it in very
oskar4498
limited cases
InoffensivePablum
Given all the laws passed to prevent this, I'd love to see the details that lead to this. I can't find anything on Google, can you source?
DigitalBang
Another “urban myth”
Duendes
That's because it's a servsafe issue, involving the health department. You get in trouble but for different reasons.
InoffensivePablum
That's an interesting observation. I'd love more information on how that affects charitable donations. A source would be great!
Somanyquestions
John Oliver did a segment on food waste. They couldn't find a single case of this happening.
InoffensivePablum
You are implying that someone has logged onto The Internet and lied. I find that impossible to accept. HOW DARE YOU!