A lady by the name of Della Curry was recently fired from her job kitchen manager at an Aurora, Colorado, elementary school. Why? She was giving hungry kids food instead of pitching it into the trash when the kids didn’t have the money to pay for it:
“I was let go for not charging for all of the food I gave to the students … I would have kids start crying when I told them they didn’t have money in their account because they were terrified of getting the cheese sandwich … It’s not nutrition. It’s not healthy,” she said. “It’s wrong on so many levels, and I hated to see food go to waste. I hated to see food thrown away that could’ve been given to these children that are hungry.” Curry was supposed to take the students’ food, throw it away and replace it with the cheese sandwich and milk if a student had exceeded the $7.60 debt limit, she said. Instead, she would cancel the transaction and remind the student to bring their lunch money … Curry acknowledged that her actions went against the district’s policy and when asked why she did it, Curry said, “Because it was the right thing to do and sometimes doing what is right is not what is easy.”
Colorado Lunch Lady Says She Was Fired for Giving Kids Free Meals (ABC News)
I’ve got a brilliant idea. Let’s not put good people in the position where they have to lose their jobs for being decent human beings. Let’s just provide free lunch … lunch cooked at the schools by people who will then put the money back into the economy when they spend their wages … to all children regardless of socioeconomic level. That way no one’s children are “getting something for nothing”; everyone’s kids are getting food and education because they are citizens of the USA.
Several countries already provide a free lunch to every schoolchild. Finland does it. Sweden does it. The Czech Republic does it. Estonia, which is one of the poorest countries in the world, does it. What is our excuse?
Any country worth a fly’s tiny poo doesn’t let kids go hungry. When did we become the kind of heartless monsters that would rather throw away food than let poor kids think they are “entitled” to full bellies?