Thank you for posting to r/OrphanCrushingMachine! Please reply to this comment with a short explanation of why you think your submission fits OCM. Please be specific, if possible. Otherwise, your post may be removed.
To anyone reading who disagrees with OP, try to avoid Ad Hominem attacks. Criticise the idea, not the person.
Almost like the place where you spend much of your day should provide you with a healthy nutritious meal, like in the developed world, and much of the developing, but America still hasn't gotten the note yet
Edit: not through taxes. It's a school fee you need to pay. If you don't pay, your child doesn't eat that food. There are subsidies for people who can prove they are too impoverished to pay them, but that's not different from the USA. Also many French schools do not provide any food and the expectation is you bring your own food from home, especially once you're out of elementary school.
Source: I actually attended a public school in France for a few months.
Really depends on the place, go ask French people most of them will tell you the food is shit.
Most places will give you stuff that should be nutritious and healthy enough but it's not restaurant stuff, it's overcooked and the texture is the worst.
Can’t exactly recommend German school food and it wasn’t free either iirc (ever had spinach so salty you could hear the grains crunching? I once saw someone open up their oven meal only to be hit with a cloud of mold spores… the juice was always so watered down it was worse tasting water with some color, etc.)
Like, still preferable to America I’d guess but only because y’all are setting the bar in hell (mind you those are the worst example and most of the food was perfectly edible and mold free, occasionally even tasty) (the schools I went to were otherwise pretty good too)
Don’t most of them have to buy food from commissary because the provided slop isn’t enough? Not to mention I’d rather starve than have to eat ‘nutriloaf’ or whatever that brick of despair is called.
And let’s not talk about how your prison system was (and still is) basically slavery 2.0
Yeah, kids should get free school lunches but prisoners should honestly get better food and conditions too
Don't act like the legal slaves in your country have it very good either. This isn't either or. Someone caught with some pot shouldn't have any less of a right to not starve than children. There is plenty of food for everyone since the green revolution. No one needs to go hungry
I would like to point out as well, many homeless shelters in my area (and likely others) are given the leftovers and expired food from schools by these companies. It's fuckin awful.
I liked that one clip where someone went up to pro-life protestors and asked them to sign a petition for free food for children. It was baffling seeing so many "think of the children" type people suddenly changing their stance. Props to the folks who were consistent with their ideals and signed the petition though
Same type of people let a government educate their children instead of doing it themselves. Pure laziness. Moreover, they're aware of the food and have more time for income or prep and still allow these kids to eat it. Hard to tell who's the bigger "shit stain".
If you’re insinuating home schooling is a decent option, I really feel bad for any children you may have failed as a parent. May god have mercy on your soul.
Homeschooling is a bane on society. I have not met one home schooled adult that is 1. Socially equipped to deal with others and 2. Have stunted educational growth (shouldn't be telling a grown woman that rain is not from angels crying in heaven)
I’m pretty sure it’s everyone’s job to help hungry 6 y/os. I don’t care if it’s some random person’s kid. If I’m sitting on the porch and they’re standing there watching me eat and say, “I’m hungry.” “Where’s your parents?” “The store.”
I’m a fucking asshole if I say anything but, “here take these chips and go play.”
Edit: FYI: I live in a neighborhood and know my neighbors.
Compassion. Yes, seriously. Back when I was in school, if you didn't have lunch money, you didn't get to eat. Now schools give you food regardless, and you can run an endless tab. The parents are responsible for paying it off because it's their kid who ate. Nobody else benefitted.
I'm probably way late, and honestly the title was most likely just rhetorical, but I do find this subject fascinating and have watched a ton of documentaries and news stories on it, so here is the best answer I got:
First, school boards, districts, counties, etc. normally buy their lunches as pre-made or easy to assemble meals from large companies like Yum Brands, Sysco, Tysons, etc. They have contracts with these companies where they essentially agree to pay a price for each lunch/meal. They then turn around and sell that meal to a student (at exactly what price they sell it to the student at seems to differ, but often not much, if anything more). The general goal of the school district, county, etc. is to break relatively even on these meals.
If the student can't afford the meal, then the USDA is supposed to step in with their Free and Reduced Price Meals (or National School Lunch Program). The program provides the school with a supplemental amount of money per meal (based on if the student qualifies for a free meal or a reduced price meal) and sets "guidelines" (I'm using quotes here b/c if a school breaks these there are significant penalties and possible legal actions) which set how much a meal can be sold for / how much a student is allowed to pay, if anything, as part of this program... and like, the companies know this two and factor it into their contracts when selling the meals, so...
Anyway, to qualify for the program the students' parents have to fill out (a small~ish amount of) paper work and submit proof of income. They only get to do this once per academic year in most cases, and if the parents either make too much money, don't fill out the paperwork properly, don't understand the paperwork, are too embarrassed to ask for help, have their financial situation change, or just don't fill it out the student doesn't get the benefits from the USDA.
As a result, most schools nation wide have a set of students who can not afford meals, but do not meet the requirements set forth by the USDA.
Since, as many other comments have noted, it is generally considered better to feed a hungry child than to let them go hungry, most schools continue to feed these students, even tho they can't pay. This means the individual schools start running a deficit on the cost of the meals vs the income from selling them or USDA funds. As most schools nation wide have tight budgets, they keep track of the students who haven't paid for meals and record the cost of their unpaid meals as "School Lunch Debt"
Since the schools (and by extension their districts and countries) are often spread thin financially and do pay for these meals either way, they try multiple methods to claw back the unpaid funds.
I live in NYC and we feed our children here. I am having a hard time understanding why you wouldn’t feed children in your custody or think it would be ok for anyone not to.
Children don’t have agency and they are mandated by the state to be in school under the custody of the state. Failing to care for their wards is abominable.
If you think it’s ok for schools to not feed the kids a decent meal you are really just absolutely the most vile trashiest person I can imagine, completely void of respectability.
In your comment you said that if you live in a place that doesn't provide free food, you are garbage. The USA (country you live in) doesn't provide free food, are you garbage? Half garbage since your city does?
Children are in their parent custody. My family was broke and my mom packed bread slices for me for school because she was responsible for my well-being. No school I attended in Europe ever served food to anyone - you either brought your own food from home or bought junk from a vending machine. School's job was to educate, that's it, and that's all they did. Parents job was to feed, cloth, etc. so they did that 🤷
It's really odd that the USA is so opposed to giving social welfare to people to feed them, they'll put another job on the schools instead.
Because calling 98% of humanity garbage is a lot? If a country wants to push social welfare services into schools, fine, but calling people garbage because their country doesn't is insane.
According to the commenter:
Africa- only garbage people, no country provides free food to all students.
Asia- only India has not garbage people, everyone else who is Asian is garbage
Europe- only Finland (maybe Sweden, found some conflicting information) is not garbage, all other Europeans are garbage
North and South America - only Brazil is not garbage, every other person is garbage
I don’t really give a shit about the nowheresville that you’re from.
If you have children in your custody you should be responsible to provide some food to them every few hours. I care about the wellbeing of children not whatever bullshit you’re into.
You seem to think that entire nations are homogenous. A very simplistic view of the world. And then to come on here and make excuses for people who would abuse kids, makes you in particular extra especially terrible.
This is just my opinion. You’re obviously free to not feed kids I just think that it’s a deeply horrible way to treat children and I would call anyone a who considers themselves to be a good person to have a reckoning with themselves and whatever crap they call their faith.
I don’t know what else to tell you. There’s no law that says you have to be good. Go forth and be merry.
I'm not surprised though, you are from a country whose president called poorer countries "shitholes", no wonder you think of others as garbage, too. Trump really does represent you perfectly.
Ive seen the garbage bins and dumpsters behind a school. Putting people into debt so kids can eat is blatantly a choice. Not an unfortunate circumstance. Its diabolically stupid.
Instead of taxing the 1%, Americans just wait around for a celebrity to feel a little altruistic and donate some money toward a basic governmental function.
Thank you for posting to r/OrphanCrushingMachine! Please reply to this comment with a short explanation of why you think your submission fits OCM. Please be specific, if possible. Otherwise, your post may be removed.
To anyone reading who disagrees with OP, try to avoid Ad Hominem attacks. Criticise the idea, not the person.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
Almost like the place where you spend much of your day should provide you with a healthy nutritious meal, like in the developed world, and much of the developing, but America still hasn't gotten the note yet
French school food looks amazing.
It's not free, families have to pay for it.
Edit: not through taxes. It's a school fee you need to pay. If you don't pay, your child doesn't eat that food. There are subsidies for people who can prove they are too impoverished to pay them, but that's not different from the USA. Also many French schools do not provide any food and the expectation is you bring your own food from home, especially once you're out of elementary school.
Source: I actually attended a public school in France for a few months.
"French" school food. France, the European country, has a great school food program with amazing looking food.
Really depends on the place, go ask French people most of them will tell you the food is shit.
Most places will give you stuff that should be nutritious and healthy enough but it's not restaurant stuff, it's overcooked and the texture is the worst.
Can’t exactly recommend German school food and it wasn’t free either iirc (ever had spinach so salty you could hear the grains crunching? I once saw someone open up their oven meal only to be hit with a cloud of mold spores… the juice was always so watered down it was worse tasting water with some color, etc.)
Like, still preferable to America I’d guess but only because y’all are setting the bar in hell (mind you those are the worst example and most of the food was perfectly edible and mold free, occasionally even tasty) (the schools I went to were otherwise pretty good too)
This wouldn't have been an issue if Germans had just tried a little harder back in the 40's /s
[deleted]
Don’t most of them have to buy food from commissary because the provided slop isn’t enough? Not to mention I’d rather starve than have to eat ‘nutriloaf’ or whatever that brick of despair is called.
And let’s not talk about how your prison system was (and still is) basically slavery 2.0
Yeah, kids should get free school lunches but prisoners should honestly get better food and conditions too
Don't act like the legal slaves in your country have it very good either. This isn't either or. Someone caught with some pot shouldn't have any less of a right to not starve than children. There is plenty of food for everyone since the green revolution. No one needs to go hungry
Many of the companies that supply meals to prisons are the exact same ones that supply meals to schools.
I would like to point out as well, many homeless shelters in my area (and likely others) are given the leftovers and expired food from schools by these companies. It's fuckin awful.
Sysco
A lot of former imprisoned people come out with ridiculous debts due to having to buy food and other necessities.
Only the worst people don’t provide meals for children in school. Like truly evil shit stains.
I liked that one clip where someone went up to pro-life protestors and asked them to sign a petition for free food for children. It was baffling seeing so many "think of the children" type people suddenly changing their stance. Props to the folks who were consistent with their ideals and signed the petition though
Ask them to sign a petition making it harder to take away benefits from black mothers with children under 16, watch them backtrack.
Same type of people let a government educate their children instead of doing it themselves. Pure laziness. Moreover, they're aware of the food and have more time for income or prep and still allow these kids to eat it. Hard to tell who's the bigger "shit stain".
If you’re insinuating home schooling is a decent option, I really feel bad for any children you may have failed as a parent. May god have mercy on your soul.
Homeschooling is a bane on society. I have not met one home schooled adult that is 1. Socially equipped to deal with others and 2. Have stunted educational growth (shouldn't be telling a grown woman that rain is not from angels crying in heaven)
Keep drinking the Kool aid.
Props to him for doing that, but the situation shouldn't even exist in the first place.
Welcome to the sub! 😁
My exact thoughts. Like nothing but love for this action but why do they have to do this
This was on r/damnthatsinteresting earlier lol
That's where I found it, lol
What is that title?
/r/ihadastroke
I see the OP successfully recovered halfway through, though.
"halfway through" it's only fucked for like the first 20%, give me a break
Op put a joke reply not a dick, don't take it so hard everyone...
It was supposed to be "why are they"...
And they say school doesn't prepare you for the real world 😏
“Student lunch debt” should not be a real term.
The world "lunch debt" never manages to baffle me. Wtf is happening in the US
Happy cake day
Eyy danke
"Not my job to feed somebody else's kids!" FFS, people suck.
I’m pretty sure it’s everyone’s job to help hungry 6 y/os. I don’t care if it’s some random person’s kid. If I’m sitting on the porch and they’re standing there watching me eat and say, “I’m hungry.” “Where’s your parents?” “The store.”
I’m a fucking asshole if I say anything but, “here take these chips and go play.”
Edit: FYI: I live in a neighborhood and know my neighbors.
What...uh...what is the title supposed to say?
"Why are they"...
Compassion. Yes, seriously. Back when I was in school, if you didn't have lunch money, you didn't get to eat. Now schools give you food regardless, and you can run an endless tab. The parents are responsible for paying it off because it's their kid who ate. Nobody else benefitted.
Shout out to Em
All because of D'Angelo Bailey stole his lunch as a kid
I'm probably way late, and honestly the title was most likely just rhetorical, but I do find this subject fascinating and have watched a ton of documentaries and news stories on it, so here is the best answer I got:
First, school boards, districts, counties, etc. normally buy their lunches as pre-made or easy to assemble meals from large companies like Yum Brands, Sysco, Tysons, etc. They have contracts with these companies where they essentially agree to pay a price for each lunch/meal. They then turn around and sell that meal to a student (at exactly what price they sell it to the student at seems to differ, but often not much, if anything more). The general goal of the school district, county, etc. is to break relatively even on these meals.
If the student can't afford the meal, then the USDA is supposed to step in with their Free and Reduced Price Meals (or National School Lunch Program). The program provides the school with a supplemental amount of money per meal (based on if the student qualifies for a free meal or a reduced price meal) and sets "guidelines" (I'm using quotes here b/c if a school breaks these there are significant penalties and possible legal actions) which set how much a meal can be sold for / how much a student is allowed to pay, if anything, as part of this program... and like, the companies know this two and factor it into their contracts when selling the meals, so...
Anyway, to qualify for the program the students' parents have to fill out (a small~ish amount of) paper work and submit proof of income. They only get to do this once per academic year in most cases, and if the parents either make too much money, don't fill out the paperwork properly, don't understand the paperwork, are too embarrassed to ask for help, have their financial situation change, or just don't fill it out the student doesn't get the benefits from the USDA.
As a result, most schools nation wide have a set of students who can not afford meals, but do not meet the requirements set forth by the USDA.
Since, as many other comments have noted, it is generally considered better to feed a hungry child than to let them go hungry, most schools continue to feed these students, even tho they can't pay. This means the individual schools start running a deficit on the cost of the meals vs the income from selling them or USDA funds. As most schools nation wide have tight budgets, they keep track of the students who haven't paid for meals and record the cost of their unpaid meals as "School Lunch Debt"
Since the schools (and by extension their districts and countries) are often spread thin financially and do pay for these meals either way, they try multiple methods to claw back the unpaid funds.
Socialism for kids? No! But giving money to space x? Yes! Ffs!
If you under law have to be in school and can be arrested for truancy, the food should be free.
If you live in a place where the schools don’t provide meals for the children you are garbage.
??? Are all Americans garbage?
What country provides food for free for all schoolchildren? Icee lived in a few European countries and it wasn't a thing in any of them.
Not all Americans fail to be decent humans.
I live in NYC and we feed our children here. I am having a hard time understanding why you wouldn’t feed children in your custody or think it would be ok for anyone not to.
Children don’t have agency and they are mandated by the state to be in school under the custody of the state. Failing to care for their wards is abominable.
If you think it’s ok for schools to not feed the kids a decent meal you are really just absolutely the most vile trashiest person I can imagine, completely void of respectability.
In your comment you said that if you live in a place that doesn't provide free food, you are garbage. The USA (country you live in) doesn't provide free food, are you garbage? Half garbage since your city does?
Children are in their parent custody. My family was broke and my mom packed bread slices for me for school because she was responsible for my well-being. No school I attended in Europe ever served food to anyone - you either brought your own food from home or bought junk from a vending machine. School's job was to educate, that's it, and that's all they did. Parents job was to feed, cloth, etc. so they did that 🤷
It's really odd that the USA is so opposed to giving social welfare to people to feed them, they'll put another job on the schools instead.
Providing school lunch and social welfare for adults are not mutually exclusive. Is it so absurd to insist on both in a developed country?
Because calling 98% of humanity garbage is a lot? If a country wants to push social welfare services into schools, fine, but calling people garbage because their country doesn't is insane.
According to the commenter:
Africa- only garbage people, no country provides free food to all students.
Asia- only India has not garbage people, everyone else who is Asian is garbage
Europe- only Finland (maybe Sweden, found some conflicting information) is not garbage, all other Europeans are garbage
North and South America - only Brazil is not garbage, every other person is garbage
Australia&Oceania- just garbage.
I don’t really give a shit about the nowheresville that you’re from.
If you have children in your custody you should be responsible to provide some food to them every few hours. I care about the wellbeing of children not whatever bullshit you’re into.
So exactly where non garbage people are, according to you? Just Finns, Indians and Brazilians?
You seem to think that entire nations are homogenous. A very simplistic view of the world. And then to come on here and make excuses for people who would abuse kids, makes you in particular extra especially terrible.
This is just my opinion. You’re obviously free to not feed kids I just think that it’s a deeply horrible way to treat children and I would call anyone a who considers themselves to be a good person to have a reckoning with themselves and whatever crap they call their faith.
I don’t know what else to tell you. There’s no law that says you have to be good. Go forth and be merry.
I have no issues with feeding people. I have issues with calling people garbage because their country doesn't give free food to students.
It sucks to suck.
I truly am sorry that you live in a terrible place with bad people for neighbors.
I'm not surprised though, you are from a country whose president called poorer countries "shitholes", no wonder you think of others as garbage, too. Trump really does represent you perfectly.
That would have been 700,000 lunches when I was in school.
There were about 200 kids in my elementary school.
Let's call that 20,600 students.
Let's assume they all have school lunch, they all pay the regular rate, etc.
$700,000, between 103 schools like mine, in the rural midwest, paid student's lunches for a little less than 40 days in the early 90s.
I can't imagine it went very far today.
The only thing the US government loves more than dead children is starving children.
Ive seen the garbage bins and dumpsters behind a school. Putting people into debt so kids can eat is blatantly a choice. Not an unfortunate circumstance. Its diabolically stupid.
My state has free school lunches for all students.
Why isn't this the norm? When did feeding children become controversial?
🇺🇸
Instead of taxing the 1%, Americans just wait around for a celebrity to feel a little altruistic and donate some money toward a basic governmental function.
I hear they really bought it so they could collect the debt from the children first hand. Eminem says they’re easy targets for leg breakings.
Republicans don't want kids to have free lunches because they believe kids should work for their food
r/titlegore ?
The last time i saw this, it said him and his ex-wife, Kim, did this. Hmmm.
Is there a legitimate news source for this?
Are you able to take lunch from home like in other countries?
Yes, although there might be rules like no peanut butter.
Why dont people do that? Why do they give lunch on tic? We have no nuts rule here too
Some families can't afford to provide lunch every day, they might just not have any food in the house.
And others might not have the time to pack a lunch.
The time thing is absolute bs but the not having food thing- we have poverty here too but are there no charities there that help with food?
There are some. It's not like an every day thing.
You can get some food to last maybe a week