In California, school lunch is paid by the state. It’s awesome and solves this problem. All the kids get the same lunch for free. Some kids still bring their lunch, but it’s rare.
In foster care we were part of the free lunch program. The first week in my first high school the lunch lady made it a point to call us all up first so EVERYONE knew who the ‘poors’ were. This was in one of the top 5 most expensive zipcodes in the U.S.
For the next four years I ate knowledge in the library for lunch.
Yeah, but what I’m saying is that’s not a thing anymore in California, they just have free lunch for all the kids, and you don’t need to be “a poor” to get it
I went to secondary school at the turn of the millennium and I remember having to go to admin to get my dinner tickets on a Monday, which were worth £1.30, but there was never any shame in it because I don’t think too many kids knew the significance of it; in fact, my mate Danny would always want to buy them off me for £1.50 apiece. This other lad called Liam would sometimes lord it over me because his mum gave him £2 a day for his dinner, but by year 11 he was roundly known as a bit of a prick if I recall correctly, so I was even vindicated in the end.
My kids’ school did this a while back and even though I didn’t have any issues buying their lunches not having to manage their account was nice. And since they also got breakfast it was one less thing I had to do before getting them on the bus.
