Yes, There is a Free Lunch

WI Magazine ^ | September, 2011 | Mike Nichols

[arthurus]

Government nutrition programs are NOT designed to get nutritious meals to poor folks’ kids. They are designed to get control of the schools and the children. They are a big source of funds for any school district and their deployment becomes quickly contingent on toeing the federal line in all areas of public child incarceration.

[Irenic]

Most everyone was poor. But our parents PAYED for our food, clothing, health care,and homes. Not todays people. They are horrible.
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I am starting to believe schools like to get as many on ‘free lunches’ as possible. I think they turn a profit from it. Maybe I’m wrong but that is what I suspect.

When kiddo was small the schools would send home papers for me to fill out because he was a military brat— we usually always lived off base. I didn’t want to live on base.

We never took any free lunches but I suspect many did. Also, when we moved from one state and kiddo was enrolled in another school, in another state....we kept getting notices threatening to take us to court from his old school.

For what? Truancy!!! This mess went on for over two years! Even after many calls and thinking it was cleared up. I have always suspected that the school did it on purpose to collect the extra $$ they get for children of military.(that’s what I was told those papers I filled out were about)

They wanted to keep that money coming even though kiddo was long withdrawn from their school and enrolled in another school, in another state. Maybe they were THAT stupid, inefficient and unorganized but it is my opinion it was for a reason.

[mamelukesabre]

choices?

there were no choices when I was in school. It was served on a prison tray...like they serve food in prison. You picked up a tray and walked down the line. at every station, someone put something in one of the dents in your tray. 4 days out of 5 your desert was some form of jello or pudding. One day a week you got a piece of cake or a scoop of cobbler.

No one was allowed to leave without finishing their main course. You could leave bits of the side dishes if you were persistent, but not the main course. But this was a very very rare issue. It was usually a girl that was feeling ill that left some of her food on her plate. everyone else cleaned their tray like a dog. There just wasn’t enough of it to let it get tossed. we were all growing kids and very hungry.

Once in awhile there would be some leftovers from the previous day and the first few people in line could opt for the previous day’s food item instead of the current one. The drink was the same thing every day...a half pint of vitD milk in a paper carton and a small straw if you wanted one. No exceptions except fridays. Fridays you got chocolate milk unless you didn’t like it then you could get plain vitD milk instead, if you preferred. sometimes they would run out of chocolate on fridays and then you got plain vitD even if you didn’t want it. Water was not even an option. Water was not available.

If you were really hungry you had 3 options:

1. buy a second lunch
2. buy an extra drink
3. buy an extra main course item.

nothing on your tray was sold “a la carte” except the drink and the main course item.

You could volunteer to work in the dishroom for a free lunch. Not many did. I was one of the few that did. My parents gave me lunch money by the week, not by the day like most kids. I worked in the dishroom to get free lunches and kept my lunch money my parents gave me.

[Little Ray]

We didn’t have any choices when was in elementary school (1966-1972), other than the drink. When I got into middle or high school, we had two choices depending on which line we selected.

But I definitely had better food than you did!