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During COVID, school lunch was free, and most school served free bag lunches over the summer too. That ended in June 2022. Congress could've kept it going for

During COVID, school lunch was free, and most school served free bag lunches over the summer too. That ended in June 2022. Congress could've kept it going for a pittance, but alas...

thinkingtoilet 1y ago
That's what happened in MA. It was COVID that started the program and then we kept it up because we're decent people.
- ryandrake 1y ago
  A lot of the country, majorities in many states, are not decent people.
humanrebar 1y ago
State government, local government, and local philanthropy (like the chamber of commerce, etc.) could also buy lunch. I'd rather keep the dysfunction of national politics away from my kids' food, personally. At least I can reasonably move if local dysfunction goes past tolerable levels.
tecirpinslime 1y ago
My significant other work at a school during Covid where they were giving free breakfasts and lunches. The waste I witnessed from it all was atrocious, due to the fluctuations from day-to-day how many students would come in. The staff always wanted to err on the side of caution, because they didn’t want any kids to miss out. We’re talking sometimes over 200 lunches that were discarded in a day. Some things could be reused, but a lot was thrown away. It was against the rules to do anything but either give them to a student, or throw them away.
- mjevans 1y ago
  It sounds like there were a few problems identified. * Against the rules to hand them out to non-students (even after some priority window) * Operating in an unusual context where relative load is highly unpredictable * No system of reservation to try to forecast load There's also a bunch of data that's absent, like any potential causes for the variable load. Plausibly it might have been weather related, or related to families participating in a cultural event that's special even if they were celebrating in quarantine at home.
  - zdragnar 1y ago
    These problems aren't easy to solve. The first is food regulation and safety law; the same applies to restaurants who serve buffet style as well. The second isn't going away. Attendance is spotty at best in underperforming schools, in particular the ones that need free lunch the most. Many kids also won't eat some foods. The amount of waste just gets shifted from "too much prepared" to "not enough served food was eaten". The third is just an attempt to solve the second, but if there was a system of reservation in place, it would still be part of the problem- after all, what we're trying to solve is that parents aren't utilizing the already available free lunch programs because going through the means testing is too much effort for them.
    - Suppafly 1y ago
      >The first is food regulation and safety law; the same applies to restaurants who serve buffet style as well. This, food waste is built into the system. It'd be nice if it wasn't but every restaurant and cafeteria throws away just as much food as they sell, most people just don't realize it because they've never worked in food service.
- Suppafly 1y ago
  >The waste I witnessed from it all was atrocious, due to the fluctuations from day-to-day how many students would come in. The waste is just a necessary component even in for profit systems. It's still better to feed everyone than to not. Even if the only thing you are allowed to do is to give to students, then you send them home with several meals worth to use up the leftovers.
newAccount2025 1y ago
It was a really nice time. One less chore to worry about every night.
rufus_foreman 1y ago
This is a problem. If you roll out a program to deal with an extraordinary circumstance, some people think it should go on forever even when the extraordinary circumstance is over. They think it should be a welfare benefit forever. Next pandemic, no government programs. None. We've seen how it goes. No benefits next time. People just try to turn it into eternal government welfare programs. I don't want eternal government welfare programs to deal with temporary problems. Next time, no. No "temporary" government programs.
- gs17 1y ago
  >to deal with temporary problems Hungry children are not a temporary problem, and letting them go hungry is only going to cause further problems down the line.

During COVID, school lunch was free, and most school served free bag lunches over the summer too. That ended in June 2022. Congress could've kept it going for a pittance, but alas...

thinkingtoilet 1y ago

That's what happened in MA. It was COVID that started the program and then we kept it up because we're decent people.

ryandrake 1y ago
A lot of the country, majorities in many states, are not decent people.

humanrebar 1y ago

State government, local government, and local philanthropy (like the chamber of commerce, etc.) could also buy lunch. I'd rather keep the dysfunction of national politics away from my kids' food, personally. At least I can reasonably move if local dysfunction goes past tolerable levels.

tecirpinslime 1y ago

My significant other work at a school during Covid where they were giving free breakfasts and lunches. The waste I witnessed from it all was atrocious, due to the fluctuations from day-to-day how many students would come in. The staff always wanted to err on the side of caution, because they didn’t want any kids to miss out. We’re talking sometimes over 200 lunches that were discarded in a day. Some things could be reused, but a lot was thrown away. It was against the rules to do anything but either give them to a student, or throw them away.

mjevans 1y ago
It sounds like there were a few problems identified. * Against the rules to hand them out to non-students (even after some priority window) * Operating in an unusual context where relative load is highly unpredictable * No system of reservation to try to forecast load There's also a bunch of data that's absent, like any potential causes for the variable load. Plausibly it might have been weather related, or related to families participating in a cultural event that's special even if they were celebrating in quarantine at home.
- zdragnar 1y ago
  These problems aren't easy to solve. The first is food regulation and safety law; the same applies to restaurants who serve buffet style as well. The second isn't going away. Attendance is spotty at best in underperforming schools, in particular the ones that need free lunch the most. Many kids also won't eat some foods. The amount of waste just gets shifted from "too much prepared" to "not enough served food was eaten". The third is just an attempt to solve the second, but if there was a system of reservation in place, it would still be part of the problem- after all, what we're trying to solve is that parents aren't utilizing the already available free lunch programs because going through the means testing is too much effort for them.
  - Suppafly 1y ago
    >The first is food regulation and safety law; the same applies to restaurants who serve buffet style as well. This, food waste is built into the system. It'd be nice if it wasn't but every restaurant and cafeteria throws away just as much food as they sell, most people just don't realize it because they've never worked in food service.
Suppafly 1y ago
>The waste I witnessed from it all was atrocious, due to the fluctuations from day-to-day how many students would come in. The waste is just a necessary component even in for profit systems. It's still better to feed everyone than to not. Even if the only thing you are allowed to do is to give to students, then you send them home with several meals worth to use up the leftovers.

newAccount2025 1y ago

It was a really nice time. One less chore to worry about every night.

rufus_foreman 1y ago

This is a problem. If you roll out a program to deal with an extraordinary circumstance, some people think it should go on forever even when the extraordinary circumstance is over. They think it should be a welfare benefit forever. Next pandemic, no government programs. None. We've seen how it goes. No benefits next time. People just try to turn it into eternal government welfare programs. I don't want eternal government welfare programs to deal with temporary problems. Next time, no. No "temporary" government programs.

gs17 1y ago
>to deal with temporary problems Hungry children are not a temporary problem, and letting them go hungry is only going to cause further problems down the line.