Does your child rely on free lunch at school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can't we model some compassion for our children?
We'll all need a little compassion some day, maybe not exactly a box of noodles, just someone who cares.

Money can't always buy that.

Handing a kid a free lunch is exhibiting compassion, but it's not necessarily modeling compassion. Does that kid really understand what's going on? I doubt it. And unless he does, it's not really modeling. For all he knows, it's just a basic expectation that he should be fed. It's taken for granted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just to push back on the school lunch are crap line of reasoning. We do not buy lunch but my children do regularly choose to purchase lunch. I leave it up to them, one only goes for pizza and mac and cheese days while the other is more adventurous. The goal is to have local fruit on the menu daily, the breads are whole grain and there is always a salad/vegetarian option. It is not fine dining by any stretch of the imagination but it is not slop. My kids do have stands, particularly the one who eats more often. She is just more adventurous in her diet so will try things like ginger something chicken on brown rice.

We attend a school with a very low free and reduced lunch rate, but many kids like their hot lunch.

Also, I think they have done away with the stigma because no one pays cash anymore, I fund my kids accounts and they are just a name on a list that can buy lunch. Hopefully that addresses some of the embarrassment issues that are very hard on kids.

Adding to this, I saw my child's hot lunch yesterday when I picked her up. She ate a banana, cut up pieces of chicken breast, brown rice, and drank nonfat milk. She left uneaten spinach and pineapple. None of it was inedible or crap. Just an FYI.

[Anonymous]

Growing up, I knew kids who depended on it. Mine qualifies, but doesn't rely on it.