Lunch Shaming Children

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Originally Posted by hutash

I am not disagreeing with the feed and educate kids part, I commend you are your charitable efforts. It's the tone about how poor people just need to make good choices part that I have a problem with. It not only sucks to be poor, it is really hard. They are often stuck in a whirlpool of poverty with no easy escape. Even with the help of welfare, food stamps, et al, it is still difficult to get out when seemingly everything works against you. It is very hard to make good choices, like not using pay day loans, when it is the only way you can pay the rent, or not shop for and eat junk food when there are no decent stores in your area, to name just a few problems, not to mention mental and physical health issues.

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Or you have a good job (good enough to pay the rent anyway) and then one day you get arrested because your description matches that of someone who committed a crime (that is--you're black). It's not a serious crime, so the judge sets bail at only 10,000. Trouble is, you don't have 10,000, or even 1000 to pay a bailbondsman, so you sit in jail for 6 months until your court date rolls around and your case is dismissed for lack of evidence. You are released minus your job because your boss fired you when you stopped coming to work, your family has been evicted and is living in a 2 room apartment with your MIL and there's no room for you, etc, etc. This shit happens every day. Most people in jail are awaiting trial--many will have their cases dismissed, be found not guilty, or serve more time waiting for trial than their eventual conviction warrants. Just one of the many ways it sucks to be poor. A lot of us have been fake poor--working shit jobs and living on peanuts trying to put ourselves through school. It ain't the same. Being real poor is very, very hard. Of course all of us, except for a few heartless bastards, know that.

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Originally Posted by TheSilverSurfer

How long until the common sense of a universal wage makes it to the mainstream?

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Not in my lifetime.

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Originally Posted by old goat

Of course all of us, except for a few heartless bastards, know that.

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I agreed with all of that until this. Unfortunately most people don't know this unless they have been truly poor, or make an effort to understand it, which is not most Americans. The "being poor is a choice" meme is way to commonly believed.

Sure, it is possible to get out over poverty if you make good choices, the stars aline, and you get lucky as hell, it just isn't as easy as picking yourself up by your boot straps meme makes out.

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Originally Posted by old goat

A lot of us have been fake poor--working shit jobs and living on peanuts trying to put ourselves through school. It ain't the same. Being real poor is very, very hard.

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This is so true. I worked three jobs, flirted with payday loans, scrounged food from work and often stressed about rent the day it was due. But I was never "real poor." I had the safety net of a middle class upbringing that allowed me to be a bit more cavalier in decision making. I had the social capital that was provided to me through example throughout life. I never truly feared poverty, it wasn't deeply ingrained in my psyche.

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Originally Posted by hutash

I agreed with all of that until this. Unfortunately most people don't know this unless they have been truly poor, or make an effort to understand it, which is not most Americans. The "being poor is a choice" meme is way to commonly believed.

Sure, it is possible to get out over poverty if you make good choices, the stars aline, and you get lucky as hell, it just isn't as easy as picking yourself up by your boot straps meme makes out.

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By "all of us" I meant the people posting in this thread. I know of at least 537 Americans who have no clue--Congress, the President, and the VP. I'm sure I could thing of a few more if I tried hard.

You left out the 3 voting members from DC.

wife is the technology teacher at my kids elementary school. think they have a good approach to the lunch situation. they offer reduced cost lunches and free lunches. you just have to apply and those who need free lunch also can get breakfast. you don't know everyone's situation and sometimes people just need help. teaching is challenging enough and to someone's earlier point, a starving kid does not make an attentive student.

regarding the quality of school lunches, they are what they are. fortunately, my wife has an eye on things but we only let them buy a certain # of school lunches per month and they pack the rest of the days.

lunch shaming children is bullshit.

The war on drugs has always just been a war on the poor, dressed up to make it more palatable to the general public.

Philando Castile fundraiser wipes out all student lunch debt in St. Paul

MINNEAPOLIS -- A fundraising campaign to honor the memory of Philando Castile raised enough money to help pay off every St. Paul Public Schools students' lunch debt for at least a year, CBS Minnesota reports.

Castile, 32, a longtime school district employee, was fatally shot by St. Anthony police officer Jeronimo Yanez while sitting behind the wheel during a traffic stop in July 2016. The incident was captured in a wrenching video posted on Facebook by his girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds. The officer was charged with manslaughter and later acquitted by a jury.

Castile spent years working as a nutrition supervisor for the J.J. Hill Montessori School, and his mother, Valerie, presented a $10,000 check to the school on Friday.

Pam Fergus, a psychology professor at Inver Hills Community College, and her students raised more than $70,000 in Castile's honor through an online fundraiser called "Philando Feeds the Children."

My kid's school is 65-70% Latino with a similar percentage of free and reduced lunch program students. The parent(s) are working two jobs to try to make a living and many of them are barely home.

These folks live in a crowded and dirty part of a town that is otherwise full of million dollar homes. I'm not sure the parents are educated and/or are aware about better food choices. Most of them don't use computers or the internet.