Wednesday, May 04, 2005
very sad
I'm switching gears today at work, from pesticides and infant growth to a survey among low-income kids about their trouble with public transportation. One child, when asked how the problems with the bus system affects him/her, answered, "I starve because I use my lunch money to take the bus." My god, that makes me sad. I'm reminded how fucking lucky I am. No wonder there's a truency problem among low inclome youth. Maybe those "troubled, badly behaved kids" are just "trying to survive by choosing lunch over school." I need to fill that child in on the free lunch program. If I knew who he/she was, I'd sponser his/her trip to school instead of my coffeehouse habit.
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2 comments:
That is heartbreaking. You are in a good field of work, J. Po., and I"m glad someone's doing it.
There's actually a big stigma around the free lunch program. Teachers in multiple schools told me that they couldn't get the kids to eat free lunch after about sixth grade or so because they were embarrassed - and this was in schools were 75-100% of the kids qualified for free lunch! So the kids would be all squirrely and cranky all day because they hadn't eaten.
That may sound crazy (who would turn down free food?), but I remember a big shift around that time from eating school lunch to bringing my own or buying a la carte in order to be 'cool' - my guess is it's the same thing going on with these kids, except they can't afford any of the other options.
Perhaps J.Po can figure out some way to unstigmatize free lunch!
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