Over 7,000 students in Georgia with unpaid lunch balances are getting a helping hand following a $1 million initiative from the Arby’s Foundation, the nonprofit announced Thursday.

  • azimir@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    Georgia apparently would rather put 10 year olds into debt than feed children. It’s the best they can do as Christians.

    • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      It is biblical. Charity to people like Paul was freely given out of love vs welfare-taxation system we have now.

      Of course a good person who was a Christian could reason out

      “Paul was in Rome so he must have seen the free donations of food given by the emperor to the city’s poor but didn’t comment on it. Which meant that when he talks about charity he is talking about a supplement, yes a supplement not a first response, to actual effective large scale operations. I should be happy with both. A good government that works hard that I add too. Not a bad government I helped create and stick a bandaid on by throwing a twenty in the collection plate”.

      A pity this doesn’t seem to occur to them. Despite the theological wiggle room.

  • TransplantedSconie@lemm.ee
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    8 months ago

    Sad that this is even a thing. The richest nation on earth should be able to give its future 2 square meals a day.

    • Drusas@kbin.social
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      8 months ago

      But that would set them up with unreasonable expectations for adulthood! Gotta prepare them for their future of struggling to get by.

    • assembly@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      School lunch debt is the so incredibly dystopian that I hope 20-30 years from now people will have to use an internet search to find out what it meant to people in this decade. Like it’s so unabashedly wrong as a thing, I hope we look at like when Bayer made heroin and bloodletting was in practice.

  • Betch@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    Jesus Christ. Students now have debts before they even leave high school? Cool.

    • lain@lemmy.sdf.org
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      8 months ago

      in capitalism, by the time you were put into this world, you already have a fuck ton of debt

    • HeyJoe@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Pretty soon it will be the norm that when you graduate high school you take your first bankruptcy and clean your slate before your life really starts to matter. Hell it’s only 7 years, you got 4 years of college so only 3 more till you can start living again! Well I guess after you somehow pay off those new college loans as well.

    • flathead@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      “Then he took the seven loaves and the fish, and when he had given thanks, he broke them and gave them to the disciples, and they in turn gave to the people. They all ate and were satisfied. Afterward, they were all given invoices and in his majestic mercy he allowed them all an extra 30 days to pay.”

      Matthew 15:32

    • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      There is a federal lunch subsidy program, and many states also have their own lunch programs. The program even extends through the summer.

      Several caveats.

      First, not every state participates. This is free money that states could use to feed hungry kids, and some states are just like “nah, fuck them kids.”

      Second, parents generally have to apply for the program. You fill out some forms, and the kids get subsidized lunches. That’s a problem, because not every parent knows the programs exist, not every parent speaks English or Spanish or another language the school might be thoughtful enough to have the forms translated into. At my kids’ elementary school, during Covid, we learned that there are 32 different first languages spoken in the homes of students. Sharing information is a problem.

      Third, the subsidized lunch is often a lesser meal than what the paying kids get. It might be a cheese and white bread sandwich, an apple sauce, and some milk. Now, sure, if you’re hungry, food is better than no food. But kids know what the brown bag lunch means. It’s embarrassing, creates division across income levels, and can encourage some hungry kids to choose not to accept the food rather than face ridicule.

      But you know what’s amazing? During Covid, school meal providers were facing financial ruin. They had contracts to provide food for a bunch of kids that weren’t in the schools. Sysco and Aramark and many others were staring at a total loss for all of their school lunch programs, and the government bailed them out. The state and federal governments found a way to pay for all the school lunches and give them away for free to all students in every state. There wasn’t even a debate, and no politicians opposed it.

      The money was just there, no strings or hoops or pork barrel haggling. Major industry is facing crisis, and suddenly we can afford to feed all the kids, no exceptions, no forms or paperwork. Local food banks were overflowing with frozen meals and fresh produce and all the tiny cartons of milk you can imagine.

      Now, you could say that Covid was an emergency, that the collapse of the school lunch industry would have horrible economic ramifications, and that would be true.

      But it wasn’t even expensive, and that was for everybody. There’s no reason we could not afford to provide free lunches to any child in America who asks for it, and I mean a real lunch. The same thing the kid who paid is getting. School cafeterias throw away more food than the value of food given away as part of free lunch programs AND unpaid lunch debts combined. Feeding every child would be a rounding error, and nobody would be stigmatized or penalized because their parents couldn’t afford their lunch.

      Hungry kids don’t learn. Feed them all.

      • Rivalarrival@lemmy.today
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        8 months ago

        First, not every state participates. This is free money that states could use to feed hungry kids, and some states are just like “nah, fuck them kids.”

        Alabama, Alaska, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Vermont and Wyoming.

        The program requires states to pay half of the administrative costs - not the benefit itself, just the costs associated with distributing the benefit.

        The federal free lunch program would have brought $18,000,000 to the state, at a total cost of $300,000 to the state. The governor refused the program, saying “I don’t believe in welfare.”

        Nebraska receives $1,100,000,000 per year in agricultural subsidies. He doesn’t have a problem taking federal dollars to feed pigs, but kids are on their own.

        • baseless_discourse@mander.xyz
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          8 months ago

          He doesn’t have a problem taking federal dollars to feed pigs,

          Hey, just because they are Nebraska politicians, doesn’t mean they deserve to starve. :P

      • maness300@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        and the government bailed them out.

        So fucking tired of this.

        Privatize the gains, socialize the losses.

        This is bullshit.

    • yggstyle@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Whoa now buddy. Can’t have that socialism in muh murica. How else will these poor for profit institutions keep posting record profits?

      *edit In some places maybe… but that and may other services have been gutted. sadly.

  • Fixbeat@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    Just think how many people could be fed with that waste of space Elon’s billions.

  • oakey66@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    I hate seeing these articles as if those people should be thankful for the kindness of some random person instead of being angry that school lunch debt is something that actually exists.

    • JoBo@feddit.uk
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      8 months ago

      I fucking hate massive corporations laundering their reputations like this. If they cared, they’d lobby for higher taxes on the rich to pay for free school meals and a bazillion other things that govt should provide but doesn’t.

      • oakey66@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Exactly. Not to mention that there are states that had minor increases on the wealthiest of the state and made school lunches free. This country is abysmal.

      • Daveyborn@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        This is also important to remember too, hopefully enough people realize it’s an attempt at a pr boost.

    • rdyoung@lemmy.world
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      8 months ago

      Why can’t both be happening. Don’t assume that they aren’t aware and bothered by the school systems way of doing things.