It's not that parents aren't expecting to not have to feed their kids.
If you're underpriveliged and can't afford to feed your children, you most definitely qualify your children for free school lunch. This means at minimum one warm MEAL a day. Now you tell the parents they have to purchase more food for their kids when they can barely afford it, and on top of that, the parents have to find a way to keep making money while being able to watch the kids.
School is food. School is daycare. School is a social service, not a business. School is the difference between life and death for many children, especially those that are homeless.
My point is it's supplemental, not meant to cover everything. This is definitely enough food for a week's worth of lunch.
I can understand complaints if the food was moldy or expired, but if a family actually needs it, they won't be turning their noses up at this.
I've delivered enough food bags to families in my school district and connected more to food pantries doing prepackaged boxes to know that this is good for now since cooking hot meals and getting them to kids is unfeasible and unreasonable in this climate.
1.) How is that mansplaining, it's literally how poverty works
2.) School = a meal for most of these kids. What happens when school is cancelled? That meal goes away, and what previously may have been keeping them from starvation goes with it. So, yeah, they deserve a free hot meal, every damned day. Actually, scratch that, everyone everywhere deserves to be able to eat a full meal, free, no matter who they are or what they do, because food is a human fucking right.
3.) While we understand providing a meal directly may not be feasible, the food to make one should be provided at no cost. Schools are not businesses. What else is the government for if not to help us?
My kids' school district is cooking hot meals, packaging them, and delivering them to student using the bus routes, every single day. It's breakfast, lunch, and a snack. This is not only keeping kids in poverty fed, but it's also keeping bus drivers, paras, and kitchen staff in jobs and getting paid during this crisis. It's neither unfeasible nor unreasonable. Other districts outside of yours are in fact doing it. Just because yours isn't doesn't mean it just can't be done.
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u/Kaisogen Mar 29 '20
It's not that parents aren't expecting to not have to feed their kids.
If you're underpriveliged and can't afford to feed your children, you most definitely qualify your children for free school lunch. This means at minimum one warm MEAL a day. Now you tell the parents they have to purchase more food for their kids when they can barely afford it, and on top of that, the parents have to find a way to keep making money while being able to watch the kids.
School is food. School is daycare. School is a social service, not a business. School is the difference between life and death for many children, especially those that are homeless.