<p>We find at our public school which really ranges in terms of socio-economic status that MOST ALL kids have some $$$. If you have enough volunteers to man it, how about setting up a breakfast snack stand - sell granola bars, bananas, juice boxes, - quick, appropriate breakfast grab and go foods. If you buy bulk you can sell them for the price you paid for them - granola bars will only be like a quarter (or less) - how much does one banana actually cost? Not much. If you had one person buy stuff for the week and one or two people to man it each day you’d be set. Unless you think you’d be overwhelmed with buyers…</p>
<p>If it doesn’t work or no one is interested, just stop offering the “service”.</p>
<p>Thanks mombot & fencersmom, for realizing that encouraging self-reliance does not equal hate. Doubleplay, you are absolutely correct that a hungry kid will eat what is provided, even if it is not an Otis Spunkmeyer cookie, LOL! Much of the formal programs have tons of wasted food because most kids are not actually hungry, and they only forage for goodies. (Ever see an unsupervised kid take four cupcakes, lick off the icing, then throw the cupcakes away? I have. Kids do that sort of thing.) And coureur, while I wouldn’t want to stigmatize kids, I also don’t want my kid noshing on a second breakfast. Trust me, he is well-fed & doesn’t need it. I don’t want my efforts peeling carrots & slicing apples as lunch treats undermined.</p>
<p>Perhaps this wise proverb sums it up best: Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime. That is truly the most charitable approach.</p>
<p>I don’t know what you’re implying by your last paragraph in post 40, mini. (If you mean literally “my” kids.) My kids haven’t attended public schools, because the ones in my neighborhood have not only all the enumerated social ills, they are incredibly violent, & I have two unarmed girls.</p>
<p>My support is for children I teach who are not my children but are suffering from neglect of their educational rights, due to the schools’ acceptance of inappropriate responsibility for both the food and NON-FOOD needs of their peers, who need PROFESSIONAL intervention, not amateurish pretenses at coping.</p>
<p>“Perhaps this wise proverb sums it up best: Give a man a fish; you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish; and you have fed him for a lifetime. That is truly the most charitable approach.”</p>
<p>Teach a man to fish and place him by the side of a polluted pond, with other new fisherpeople, where the water is polluted, and the very few fish caught are cancer-inducing, and the fisherpeople fight over them, and he will hate you for the rest of his life. Better to give him fish to eat, or even the bait which are the scraps left over from your dinner table.</p>
<p>“As to feeding their kids, if you believe you should send your kids to Ivy-land or some such because of the value of having smart peers…”</p>
<p>Nothing I posted said or implied any such thing. And given my service to underprivileged students, I think you owe me an apology, mini, for your offensive remarks. Again, this is not about “my” kids, but about children who do not have the funds to go elsewhere than their local public school, but who are being neglected in these classrooms because they’re normal & cared-for by essentially healthy parents.</p>
<p>How silly, mini! How does pollution in third world countries have any relevance to US kids coming to school hungry, despite the duplicate & triplicate nutrition resources available to their families? It just doesn’t. Anyway, many of the most successful third world anti-poverty programs have a critical self-reliance component. That’s why they are successful.</p>
<p>Epiphany brings home excellent points about the never-ending, inapporpriate roles thrust on our schools & teachers. I would add that the reason middle-class taxpayers aren’t marching in the streets is because they know they’ll be told they are full of hate, just as I was earlier in this thread. Throw in racist, too, as that’s likely to be a kneejerk accusation. Add to that the fact that as programs expand, and higher income levels are getting a tiny piece of the pie, they gradually become dependant on the public teat. Look! Little Johnny gets a free carton of milk & a granola bar every day! One less job for me to handle!</p>
<p>And mini, I find it really offensive that you keep repeating that hungry kids sharing space with our kids will make ours suffer, as if only this selfish motivation would arouse any sympathy or charitable instincts for truly hungry kids.</p>
<p>“You should feel free to start a seperate thread to discuss other opinions - she asked for suggestions, not opinions on if/why…”
The if/why matters in the how. If these are truly needy people, it should be approached differently and different provisions made available. If it’s just about convenience, then that would be handled differently.</p>
<p>In support of SS’s comment about the possible stigma against middle-class parents, I actually think it’s even <em>more</em> a responsibility of teachers & their unions to express the outrage. Teachers have surrendered control to their legislatures, state dept’s of education, school boards, and the dominant population in any given school district. They show zero leadership in this area. The message is not hate. The message is one of <em>effective</em> love. It is as dishonest to suggest that teachers can be effective social workers as it is to suggest that teenagers make ideal parents. Agencies & institutions which can address these needs better should be addressing these needs, with teachers brought in under conditions which allow them to teach. Fund these agencies within the school sites, for that matter, but fund them and staff them with the appropriate professionals in those roles, not with educators. You see, the reality is, the gov’t knows darn well that the public won’t pay for that. Such schools would cost 2-3 times what a non-supported school costs. So they merely manipulate the teachers, who are too spineless to object. The ones who object merely vote with their feet.</p>
Very true. As Epiphany points out, if a kid is sent to school hungry, more than likely there are many, many other issues (the why) that need addressing. Poor families have food stamp programs & WIC programs & free lunch programs. Food banks. Church-run food pantires. When a kid is hungry, it’s not because there are no resources. It is because the parent has not taken the initiative to have food in the house.</p>
<p>Just building off post 50: When I spoke initially of communities of true impoverishment, it was also a time period when adjunct social services were separately available – not yet for things like domestic abuse, but definitely for other social services that have since then been eliminated, at least in my region. So “just” taking care of the food needs at that time period (and with fewer food-bank options than there are now), was possible as an isolated need, as there were other agencies/personnel to address other needs. That is no longer very unversally true.</p>
<p>Really, it does seem we’re all making too much of this. It’s just not that complicated. When my youngest was at a K-8 “open” alternative school (under a public charter, so no tuition), the school had an “organic” garden (yeah, I know, “organic” is just carbon-based, but in our neighborhood people take food seriously). A parent oversaw the garden, the kids and parent volunteers worked it, and the food was used to supplement breakfasts, snacks, and lunches. Surplus was sold at a “road stand” by the older kids, which provided seed money. Healthy nutrition and social responsibility were part of the curriculum. The school board tried to pressure the school into accepting district fare (yucky food), but the cook simply wouldn’t hear of it. The whole community rose up in arms and won – a great lesson for the kids in political responsibility. Because the school lunch program is a model for the community (award-winning and often featured in the media), local markets make donations without even being asked. And when kids and parents arrive in the morning, a table is set outside the cafeteria with juice, milk, muffins, and whatever “cookie” felt like making that morning. It certainly doesn’t feel like dependency, just hospitality – like, if you visit your neighbor, maybe she’ll offer you refreshments.</p>
<p>Cello guy, in many places parents don’t get that involved. Heck, my kid’s NYC public high school pays parents to come to PT conferences to receive report cards. I don’t know of any public schools in my area that could run a program like that, admirable though it may be.</p>
<p>Bravo celloguy - great post. An example that worked for one school situation. No doubt every school or public school situation is much different. We don’t know a lot of specifics about the OP school situation - urban, rural - I don’t think it was mentioned. </p>
<p>OP isn’t trying nor could she likely solve the major problems/issues within her school. But sounds like she and a group of interested parents have found a cause they would like to help and she asked to pick our brains.</p>
<p>Here’s my 2 cents:
At our hs, whenever they had “free” goodies, the same group of people would always hog it all up- they’d get at the front of the line, take more than one donut/cookie/bagel/whatever, and go back again and again. The late birds didn’t get anything because it would be all gone within minutes.
So if you are offering it to everyone, be sure to come up with a way to prevent that from happening.</p>
<p>Here’s what I’m thinking about: the school opens at 8:00am for teachers. A small (2-3people) group of volunteers (students, parents, elderly, grandparents etc) who can spare an hour each school morning and man a table where fruit, bagels, cereal, muffins, granola bars, juice, milk etc. (all donated our purchased by parents or whoever) would be available for whoever would like to have breakfast in the morning before classes start. We could charge a small fee. Try it for a month and if it works, go for it. If it does not work-scrap the idea. I just wanted to know could something on this small scale work, ideas for what would work–that was my reason for my initial post. I’ve got the information I needed and we can go from there
All that other stuff–take that cause to other forum–please!!!</p>
<p>Buckeye, do you think people will volunteer? In one of my kids’ schools, the PTA had to be disbanded and in another the library closed because of lack of participation. If people will come, great. That will work very, very well – as long as the money charged covers much of the cost because you can’t do something on that scale on donations alone on a daily basis. That spread would be expensive for that many people five days a week.</p>
<p>“Nothing I posted said or implied any such thing. And given my service to underprivileged students, I think you owe me an apology, mini, for your offensive remarks.”</p>
<p>I don’t know exactly what offended you, but I am sorry you are offended. My point, however, still stands: having hungry kids in a classroom impacts the education of their non-hungry peers. That’s the point.</p>
<p>Zooserman - I have no clue as to what you are talking about - I made absolutely no references to Third World countries. I did, however, point out that the proverb about teaching a man to fish is NOT necessarily the best charitable approach, and in many cases, not even a good one.</p>
<p>And I say feed 'em. The school district, not I, but the school district said they were making a choice between firing teachers or feeding the kids. If that is the choice, then, educationally, and for ALL students, not just the hungry ones, I think they made the wrong choice.</p>
<p>“Zooserman - I have no clue as to what you are talking about - I made absolutely no references to Third World countries. I did, however, point out that the proverb about teaching a man to fish is NOT necessarily the best charitable approach, and in many cases, not even a good one.”</p>
<p>zooserman is correct. Overwhelmingly, families struggling with the ability to put food on the table are also quite uninvolved. There have been initiatives to attempt the organic gardening/production & other efforts, with the hope that students ‘invested’ in this would be enthusiatic & participate, but that has not been the case. They are not interested (overall), nor are their parents. Yet the families who need it least are the most interested in participating in these kinds of local involvement.</p>
<p>doubleplay’s comment about distribution is also important. Even for whole-class snack distribution (snacks usually provided the families in the classroom), controlling portions is very important. Students are too often put in charge of this, resulting in poor judgment, lack of control, & peer favoritism and/or pressure. It’s up to responsible adults to be the authority figures. If the teacher can’t find any, she/he should be that responsible adult.</p>
<p>Back to Paragraph One: what <em>has</em> worked, where I am locally, is an initiative by a young person desirous of bringing health back into school lunches. He is also someone who loves to cook, and has a service orientation, particularly with regard to schools. He travels to poor charter schools (I think he serves one school per year, rotating, not sure about that.) He brings his equipment, portable tent/cover, and serves HOT food. The price for the students is really minimal, & I believe the poorest students also may get partly subsidized by the district or through some other avenue. I mean, we’re talking a dollar or two. The emphasis is on low-fat meals featuriing pasta/rice + a meat ingredient + lots of veggies, often with a broth. Everything is very high quality. (I’ve sampled.) For example, sometimes he’ll serve a curried main dish. Some students still choose to bring their own lunches, but the program is well-enough attended that he continues to come, so somehow he is at least breaking even. His only regret is that there are not more of him to travel to other schools, as there is no substitute for the physical labor/presence, nor from the site equipment that must be brought. It’s better than any school cafeteria food I know of, including what’s available at expensive private colleges in the cafeterias.</p>
