I am a storyteller and spend time often in schools and libraries. You would not believe the outrage in a couple Appalachian schools I visited last year. Teachers and some librarians tell me often of the cafeteria workers having to throw out leftover food because of government regulations. If a child comes to them and asks for more they have to say no because it isn’t fair. The limits placed on them by the food Nazis make things even worse because they can’t serve traditional meals they would love to fix AND which would be a lot healthier in many respects.
These aren’t kids from great neighborhoods in some of these schools, not fat kids either. These are kids who the teachers, librarians and cafeteria workers know and they know that these kids are hungry. (BTW, the cafeteria workers are not allowed to take the food home or even give it to homeless shelters either. They have to account for what is taken by the children and what is disposed of)
In those counties in Kentucky and Tennessee (and elsewhere all around the country)civic groups, nonprofits, food banks,churches and teachers groups raise money and send backpacks of food home on weekends for these kids.
I’m from a county in Kentucky that is considered one of the poorest counties in the United States with a per capita income of less than $10,000 (9 of the 50 poorest are in that same area in Eastern Kentucky) Since Obama’s war on coal (no argument on the good or bad impact of coal on the environment)things have been even worse with so many miners losing their jobs, jobs that were considered good jobs there.
And I have heard and read online that they can send the food to local homeless shelters, but the workers tell me they are not allowed. Unopened milk or packaged food not taken by the kids can be put back and set out again, it is the cooked food and open products that becomes the issue.
Ignorance of complicated laws, what workers are actually told by “overseers” or what the law really is, food gets wasted instead of given students.
All that being said, seconds are not permitted to hungry kids.
A child on a free/reduced lunch MUST be served everything. So, even if a kid refuses to eat an option, it must still be put on their Styrofoam tray.
I've heard kids tell the lunch ladies, "I'm not eating that. It's going straight in the garbage." And still they'll put in on the tray. The kid then walks directly to the garbage can and scrapes it off.
I'm of mixed feelings about this. One the one hand it smacks of ingratitude, but on the other, I have a hard time blaming them.
I know I wouldn't want to eat with some of that stuff staring at me off the plate either.
I've complained about school lunch quality on many posts before, so I won't go into it again, rather than to say I cannot believe that we, as a society, allow our children to be fed that way. These photo's that kids put on social media are not isolated. The food is truly awful.