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String of snow days deprives many students of food
Associated Press ^ | February 13, 2010 | Sarah Karush

Posted on 02/13/2010 4:14:42 PM PST by reaganaut1

TAKOMA PARK, Md. – As back-to-back snowstorms shuttered schools for the week across the mid-Atlantic states, parents fretted about lost learning time, administrators scheduled makeup days and teachers posted assignments online. But Marla Caplon worried about a more fundamental problem: How would students eat?

The two snowstorms that pummeled the region, leaving more than 3 feet of snow in some areas, deprived tens of thousands of children from Virginia to Pennsylvania of the free or reduced-price school lunch that may be their only nutritious meal of the day. The nonprofits that try to meet the need when school is not in session also closed their doors for much of the week, leaving many families looking at bare cupboards. And many parents working hourly jobs were unable to earn any money during the week, as the snow forced businesses to close.

Caplon is a food services supervisor for Montgomery County Public Schools, where about 43,000 children are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches. Some also get breakfast, dinner and bags of staple foods to take home for the weekend. The snow days meant children would get none of that until Tuesday, because schools are closed Monday for Presidents Day.

"We've been bothered by this all week," Caplon said.

So Caplon arranged for Manna Food Center, a local food bank whose board she chairs, to bring boxes of food Friday to two still-closed elementary schools. Officials used the school district's automated phone system to notify parents of the distribution.

At Rolling Terrace Elementary School, a stream of people walked up to a Manna truck in the school's bus bay Friday. They filled plastic shopping bags with cans of soup, vegetables and beans, ground beef and Rice Krispy Treats.

(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; US: Maryland
KEYWORDS: food; schoollunch; schoollunches; snowmageddon
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To: dennisw

Time to sandblast the inscription off the Statue of Liberty base. We have enough wretched already.


61 posted on 02/13/2010 6:25:55 PM PST by Jack Black
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To: reaganaut1

My school teacher s-i-l tells us that the amount of food thrown away in the lunch program at her school is nothing short of unbelievable.


62 posted on 02/13/2010 6:31:33 PM PST by metesky (My retirement fund is holding steady @ $.05 a can.)
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To: CajunConservative

Many of the poor(?) loading up on the free food for kids are citizens. I won’t argue with you. My point is that we have idiotically imported millions of foreign poor to add to our own poor. The average education of Mexican/Central American immigrants (legal and illegal) is grade school. So what can they make of themselves over here? Yes I know there are exceptions

I don’t mind some poor immigrants but we have opened up the floodgates for them. This is no longer the land of opportunity. This is the land of -— “Try to hold your own and not slide backward.” Forget that expanding economic pie Rush likes to talk about. That is finished for a long time


63 posted on 02/13/2010 6:36:07 PM PST by dennisw (It all comes 'round again --Fairport)
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To: holdonnow

ping


64 posted on 02/13/2010 6:45:40 PM PST by TornadoAlley3 (Obama is everything Oklahoma is not.)
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To: TornadoAlley3

Sister-in-law drives a rural public school bus all school year and during the summer break drives a route picking up children to take to the school so they can get their ‘nutritious’ meal and then returns them home. And a lot of the ‘free and reduced’ lunch schools in our area are open during the summer for children to come in and get their lunch meal. Government programming children to just expect to be taken care of. How sad.


65 posted on 02/13/2010 6:55:18 PM PST by GrayNo
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To: GrayNo

66 posted on 02/13/2010 6:59:06 PM PST by TornadoAlley3 (Obama is everything Oklahoma is not.)
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To: deport

In Shreveport the lunchroom stays open all year long in the schools in poor neighborhoods.


67 posted on 02/13/2010 7:00:56 PM PST by AceMineral (Manos? Hands of Fate.)
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To: reaganaut1

Are these the same students that Michele Obama just said were overweight and needed the government to oversee their health care?

Let ‘em get their fat asses outside and shovel some snow!


68 posted on 02/13/2010 7:02:29 PM PST by airborne ("Peace, Love, Dope" has now become "Hope, Change, Obama" !!!)
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To: TornadoAlley3

You must have been reading my mind:

“When you import poverty, you have more POVERTY!!!!”

lol


69 posted on 02/13/2010 7:03:27 PM PST by Daisyjane69 (Michael Reagan: "Welcome back, Dad, even if you're wearing a dress and bearing children this time)
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To: AceMineral

In Shreveport the lunchroom stays open all year long in the schools in poor neighborhoods.


Just curious........ Do they provide transportation for the elementary students or do they let them walk the streets to get fed?


70 posted on 02/13/2010 7:11:25 PM PST by deport (TEXAS PRIMARY -- 4 DAYS TO EARLY VOTING......... 18 DAYS MARCH 2, PRIMARY)
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To: deport

I don’t know if the school system supplies transportation to summer lunch programs. However, I would not be surprised if they did. The public school system has turned to one big racket.


71 posted on 02/13/2010 7:18:59 PM PST by AceMineral (Manos? Hands of Fate.)
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To: reaganaut1

‘that may be their only nutritious meal of the day’.-——————Pure propaganda BS.

More people than ever are on food stamps....


72 posted on 02/13/2010 8:04:05 PM PST by Freddd
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To: angcat

I agree 100% all one has to do is go into any store and look at the fat slobs riding around on those carts in the supermarket and look at all the chubby (fat Kids) I have never known or seen any starving kid in our area. Its just an excuse the parents are using so they dont have to cook a meal because their to busy watching Amerian Idol or some other idiot program on the boob tube on there new flat screen hooked to cable.


73 posted on 02/14/2010 4:39:11 AM PST by bikerman (Buck Farack)
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To: reaganaut1

Our Children are starving because School has been cancelled!

OH!, THE HUMANITY!........


74 posted on 02/14/2010 4:41:51 AM PST by PSYCHO-FREEP ( Give me Liberty, or give me an M-24A2!)
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To: Rebelbase

For Mommy to sell so she can support her habits!


75 posted on 02/14/2010 10:01:42 AM PST by chris_bdba
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To: PAR35
So the trucks can get there to deliver food, but the bus can’t get there to deliver children? The parents can get there to pick up free food, but they can’t get their offspring there?

Of course, but you won't see that as part of the story.

Some people live a life expecting everything to be given to them and I mean EVERYTHING. These same people who birth children like rabbits can be seen in any local convenience store buying beer and cigarettes and all the little rabbits buying handfuls of junk food with a FED government 'credit card'.

76 posted on 02/14/2010 10:07:25 AM PST by kcvl
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To: reaganaut1; Abundy; Albion Wilde; AlwaysFree; AnnaSASsyFR; bayliving; BFM; cindy-true-supporter; ...
I wonder to what extent school lunch programs encourage parents to think that feeding their children is not their responsibility, and also how many of the children and parents are legally in the U.S.

You are asking inconvenient questions. You must report at once to the re-education camp, where you will learn to think of rainbows, fluffy kittens, and unicorns.

Maryland "Freak State" PING!

77 posted on 02/16/2010 12:07:10 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks (I am Ellie Light.)
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