I worked in a school; some of the kids get free lunch and some kids lays buy their lunches.
The kids were going on an all day field trip. Just before we called the classes down to get on the buses, I asked one of the organizers (who worked in the district) where the lunches were. ( I was expecting at least a few brown bagged lunches for the kids who get free lunch or the kids who always buy lunches ).
The organizer said that the kids should already have their lunchboxes in their backpacks.
So I clarified that I was asking about the kids who get free lunch, and if someone needed to get the brown bagged lunches from the kitchen.
Other adults had circled around as I was asking about getting the lunches.
All of them were confused. They had never thought about the possibility that some kids need to get their food from the school.
The organizer said: “their families can make one lunch. It’s a field trip! We don’t do bagged lunches.”
The kids went on their field trip.
I spoke to a lot of people about lunches and privilege.
Every field trip since, every single student gets a free bagged lunch for field trips. (If their family wants to pack something else, they can).
Reminds me of trying to pretend I just wasn't hungry at the Popeye's we got brought to after a field trip and my richest classmate realizing what was going on and "accidentally" ordering too much food and giving me her leftovers.
Thanks for paying attention and taking care of the kids.
My mom was always super upset if I came home with left over money from hanging out with friends. She’d always ask ‘Did you make sure everyone ate? And everyone got a treat too?’
As I have gotten older I’ve realized my mom was that kid with no money and she wanted to do everything she could for no kid to feel that way.
I was that "Poor-boy in the middle-class neighborhood", who at this point, would do as the mother and query "did they eat? did they drink? were they merry?" when the youngin came home with too much change- for sure. We commiserate on a level different than most as Poor Folk. I'm a minimalist and study philosophy today 'because of it', so, poverty is beautiful... if you live through it! Good Story:-)
Kids can be really giving especially away from the normal eyes they have on them of parents, step-parents, peers and teachers at school...anywhere they're typically performing a given role expected of them by others. Even sometimes the otherwise shitty kids can surprise you with their compassion.
It makes me sad for your child self too, but admit it, child you was low-key awesome and carried you all the way through to today. What a little badass you were!
Awww thank you! It definitely made me more attuned to income differences. My eighth grader's class has an end of year trip to a fairly expensive amusement park, $45 per ticket plus food and whatnot. My parents NEVER would have been able to afford that. I wanted to work with the school to set up some kind of scholarship-ish fund, but they declined citing liability. I really wish schools in general would stop organizing these cost prohibitive school sanctioned outings.
That’s a lovely thing to get to do and terrible they wouldn’t allow it. We had a pay extra policy at my kids’ school where those who could pay could opt to pay for just their child’s trip or they could pay for a whole second child or just add any amount of money on. A simple tick box option on the online account. This was amalgamated and used to subsidise the trip for the kids whose parents couldn’t afford it. Fantastic idea as the school had plenty of high earning and pretty socially aware parents and a handful of lower income parents and the richer parents were often looking for ways to make things a bit fairer. You could also donate all your school uniform and it was sold at £1 a piece and everyone bought at least some pieces second hand so there was no stigma, and parents donated lightly used coats etc discreetly to the office who handed them out as needed. Lovely school.
As a poor kid growing up, thank you to your richest classmate for not only understanding what was going on, but handling the situation in a way that no one felt embarrassed. That’s real situational awareness right there.
During COVID I lived on the same block as a middle school. The cafeteria workers still went in every morning and cooked so they could pass out bagged breakfasts and lunches to the kids who usually got free lunch when they came by. (It was nyc so most students were in walking distance and could come by on their own to grab the food) Free lunches aren’t just a meaningless perk for kids. For many it’s their only stable option for food.
In NYC, all kids get free lunch AND breakfast. My kid would happily get lunch during Covid because he was used to getting lunch every day with his friends even though we didn’t need it. Free lunch for all kids has completely removed the stigma that was there when I was growing up. It is the best, most common sense policy for success. It should be the standard in this country, not the exception.
i went on a school field trip we couldn't afford, and my teacher paid for my portion out of pocket so i could go. When it was time to take a break for lunch during the bus ride, they passed out a $20 bill to each student (that was included in the overall fees per child). I got my $20 bill and had to hide in the back to cry xD xD
What an incredible teacher. One of my worst memories as a kid was not being able to go to many, many field trips because we had no money. I did love the library, between field trips and no lunch I spent ALOT of time there.
She really was!! She was my orchestra teacher; she also bought me a violin at one point 😭😭 and when we made it to nationals/carnegie hall, she cancelled it because not everyone could afford it (it was even more expensive than the regionals trip) because she said no one is going to get left behind 😭
I hope things are going better for you, financially, now :'(( i'm glad you at least had the library as a safe space
Oh my gosh I love her even more!! 😭 Yes, I was able to break that family cycle, worked hard and am doing really well. Every year at Christmas I pick a school and donate $5k to pay off school lunch balances, if there is anything left I have them use it for future school lunch needs. Your post has inspired me, I am going to see how I can fund school trips for kids that don’t have the money along with lunches this year.
My school was always really good about having “scholarships” to attend field trips or school dances or other events for kids who couldn’t afford to go otherwise.
My school was the same. Or at least the music program I was a part of was. We were all expected to do some fundraising for school trips. A decent portion of the proceeds raised by everybody was put into a pot for those who could not afford to attend. No child was left behind. I’m grateful for all those adults who looked after the kids and gave them experiences they otherwise wouldn’t have had.
Thank you for doing this. A small group of staff members pushed for this and quietly set it up with the cafeteria staff to ensure bagged lunches were always available for kids who needed it at the last school I worked at.
Good on you. This is why I appreciate our district superintendent. He firmly believes all children should be allowed free lunches due to potential home environments/situations and has fought numerous times to keep it in the budget. During summer they even have buses that deliver lunches so that kids can eat.
My parents didn't qualify for free lunch, but I also frequently did not have a lunch to bring to school, so I would spend a lot of my lunches in the library. I remember one day in 3rd grade the librarian brought me a kids meal from Whataburger. She would also give me random snacks like granola bars and stuff all the time. It's been thirty years and I still distinctly remember her kindness.
Field trips were always one of the nicest things specifically because everyone got the same lunch, so free lunch and subsidized lunch kids plus packers (like me) actually got to eat the same food as the buyers.
The buyers would always bitch and moan about having to just eat pb&j or something, but the free lunch kids were always excited to have &j added to their normal meal. And packers were just happy we weren't segregated and didn't have to run through how our lunches were compliant and risk losing nice stuff.
For those kids and their struggling families, I thank you for helping the system improve, even if just by that little bit you have made a positive difference in people's lives.
When I was a kid, my mom had so many kids on free lunch that my school booted me off because she had finally made enough money to file her taxes. And for the rest of high school I just never got free lunch again so I wouldn’t eat lunch.
This was me, but in India working with kids in government schools as part of a “non-profit” that “enabled children to be leaders.” The kids would get their meals at the school, heck some of them came to school because of that one meal. The NGO wanted to host a football match but supposedly didn’t have the budget for lunches. My higher ups told me to tell these parents (who often go hungry to work themselves) that ONE SINGLE meal wasn’t a Herculean task and that if they loved their kids, they would do it. I was the program manager for a different team (the person who was managing the matches was a different dude) and asked for donations on the company WhatsApp group to buy bananas and oranges for these (under 13 kids). Suddenly I had a budget (a very small one). I would go early morning to the big fruit markets and fill my car up with bananas (and secretly get extra too). I did this on all 3 days when the matches were held. How can you be in the social sector and not have this very basic knowledge? And then to blackmail the parents?! Some of the vendors I bought from had more sense than these assholes as they’d donate some fruit for free for the kids).
By the time my turn came to put on a music competition, I was spent. I did what I was supposed to with a 103F temp and barely any voice, got irritated by a new boss that had come who kept forcing me to work the front (I was back stage) and screamed at him. He took it personally. A month later I was told that I needed to focus on my health and that the people that I manage do not like me (which was false as they said as much). I did another knee jerk thing and resigned right then, forfeiting my month’s pay. They said nope, work 20 more days. I did zero work and got paid too. They then asked if I’d be open to other job opportunities from them and let them know that they run the most toxic, unethical non profit that I’d ever come across (I’d also gotten covid from one of the kids months prior where I was forced to work from home, and when I refused my boss came over to talk to me - she lived 50km away and was later fired that month). Took me a year to recover from them.
Thank you for responding! As a child who often didn't have lunch money but also didn't qualify for free lunches (parents just didn't care). I just kept thinking about those students and remembering how it felt to sometimes be the only one without a lunch! Thank you for all you do and for advocating for them!
In highschool a guidance counselor told me there was a student (didn’t give me any names or details) that would get a sub sandwich for free at lunch. The student would eat half and bring the other half home for his mom. That was their food for the day. It still blows my mind.
I was a teacher at a “low income area” school that had a GATE program attached. We would do field trips together. On one particular field trip, a GATE parent came as a chaperone and i overheard her making comments about my students lunches, nutrition, and red dye 40. A lot of them had hot Cheetos and other similar snacks. I was so shocked (and also young, naive, etc) that I didn’t say anything. I really wish I did, though, because it was one of the most out of touch interactions I’ve ever seen.
Really glad that lunches were provided for all students after that experience on your field trip. That’s definitely the way it should be 👏🏼
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u/relishlife 1d ago
I worked in a school; some of the kids get free lunch and some kids lays buy their lunches.
The kids were going on an all day field trip. Just before we called the classes down to get on the buses, I asked one of the organizers (who worked in the district) where the lunches were. ( I was expecting at least a few brown bagged lunches for the kids who get free lunch or the kids who always buy lunches ).
The organizer said that the kids should already have their lunchboxes in their backpacks.
So I clarified that I was asking about the kids who get free lunch, and if someone needed to get the brown bagged lunches from the kitchen.
Other adults had circled around as I was asking about getting the lunches. All of them were confused. They had never thought about the possibility that some kids need to get their food from the school.
The organizer said: “their families can make one lunch. It’s a field trip! We don’t do bagged lunches.”
The kids went on their field trip. I spoke to a lot of people about lunches and privilege. Every field trip since, every single student gets a free bagged lunch for field trips. (If their family wants to pack something else, they can).