Food
Fight
Kathryn
Lynch
©
Copyright 2019 by Kathryn Lynch
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We
imagine a food fight with teenagers slinging food across the room at
each other, soiling each others' clothes, decorating the walls and
the lights, yelling, screaming, and laughing. This is the true story
of a food fight which took place between two adults in a closed
office, Not a bite of food changed hands.
Today
it is widely accepted that students who are hungry or undernourished
do not learn as well or as quickly as those who are nutritionally
advantaged. It took a long time for anyone to figure this out, but
finally, in 1972, the first government sponsored free lunches were
introduced into the San Francisco Public Schools.
The
Program recognized the voters' concern about cost and potential
abuse. It came with lots of rules and no help whatsoever in
monitoring these regulations. Eligibility of children into the
Program fell to school secretaries, and supervision of these large
lunch groups during the lunch hour to classroom teachers. There were
not yet any Teacher's Aids, Playground Monitors, or Lunchroom
Monitors. Absolutely no food was to leave the lunch room. Penalties
for allowing food to leave school grounds were severe. We all knew
this but our time was not spent pondering rules. Rather we were busy
each day trying to get the job done.
So
it was, that about the third week of school, I spent my first week on
lunch duty. The lunches looked good and smelled good. In the first
five minutes I could see that first graders were getting the exact
amount of food as sixth grade boys and girls. The lunch cook assured
me that this was the rule. When lunch was over, each student threw
everything remaining on the tray into the garbage can and stacked the
tray. I was appalled that large numbers of unopened milk cartons,
untouched apples, oranges, and pears were being thrown out. We were
feeding hungry children and at the same time we were teaching them to
waste.
By
the next day, when I stood at the exit door, empty milk crates were
lined up next to the garbage can. Unopened cartons of milk went in
one crate, untouched fruit in another. Sandwiches still wrapped and
untouched went into a third. During lunch any child who wanted more
could help themselves from the crates.. At the end of lunch,
the remaining items were brought to my classroom. During the
afternoon my fourth graders could take a food item to a desk
provided that it was consumed. Many took a snack out to recess where
it was often shared with kids from other classes. There remained the
problem that at the end of the school day, some food remained in the
crates. It was decided that these items were home food. They could
be placed in the children's school bags but the bags had to remain
closed until a child was at home. A child opening a bag before
getting home lost the right to take home food again. For several
months the plan worked well. Big kids got extra lunch. My fourth
graders had nutritious snacks. A few poor families had a little
extra food.
Of
course everyone knew what happened to the lunch food. And finally
the system came apart. I was called into the principal's office,
where I admitted my misdeeds and told in no uncertain terms not to
take any more food from the lunchroom. Taking the food was an
offense for which I could be fired. That day I appointed some
children to be food monitors. They collected the crates of food and
brought them to my classroom. I never touched the food in the
cafeteria again whether or not on lunchroom duty. In a week or so,
everything went back as before.
On
grilled cheese sandwich day, the sandwich crate was always full. The
Chinese children, who had no cheese in their diets found them
inedible. Other children loved them. Today, two crates full of
sandwiches arrived at my desk. Delicious. At the end of the school
day one crate full still remained with no shortage of volunteers for
“home food”. The school buses were filled with praises
for their grilled cheese badges and some of the sandwiches were
openly passed around and eaten.
This
time the Principal closed the door after asking the Secretary not to
be interrupted. He outlined my offenses at length:
“...how
I had food taken from the lunchroom”,
“...how
I had allowed consumption of some of that food in my
classroom”,
“...how
I had permitted children to take food outside to recess”,
I
asked if he knew any times the food was misused for profit. He
sputtered that I
was missing the point. There were rules. I was
disobeying those rules and he was close to deciding whether to fire
me over it.
His
face had been flushed with anger when he began. He was still ranting
but his face now had its normal hue. On and on he went, appearing to
never end, but at last he was spent.
(I
was terrified. For two years I had been attempting to remain living
a middle class lifestyle and pay the tuition of a night law school
program. Firing me would terminate my time in law school and dump me
into the streets. I sensed immediately that fear wasn't the
solution).
“OK,
if you fire me I will go to the press.!”
“I
can't imagine a single taxpayer in this city who would want children
to throw away good food.”
“I
can't imagine a single taxpayer in this city who would want to
prevent undernourished families from receiving leftover food which
would otherwise be thrown away.”,
“You
can throw me out of this school with the food, but I will come back
with a reporter who will look in the lunchroom garbage cans to see
what is happening.”
That
day after school 12 cartons of milk, 2 oranges, and a sandwich went
home for dinner. No wrapped or untouched food was thrown away that
day or any school day after that.
In
my fourth grade were a set of fraternal twins, a boy and girl,
outrageously thin. Every day each twin loaded at least six cartons
of milk into a school bag. Also taking the trip were oranges and
apples. One day, Marguerita Castellanos asked me if I knew what
happened to the food that she and Jose took home. She explained
that twice
“Mom
made apple pies that all of us got to eat. (six
children)”,
“Mom
peels the oranges and smashes them down. We have orange juice at
breakfast.”
“Do
you know what Mom does with the milk?”, she asked. “She
opens all the cartons and puts the milk in a pan on the stove. Then
the milk gets warm and she feeds it to my baby in a bottle.”
*****
Epilogue: In the 1980s, the San Francisco
Unified School District introduced a
government sponsored Breakfast Program. To manage that program,
funds were made available to hire Lunchroom Monitors to manage
breakfast and lunch meal supervision. Classroom teachers no longer
had any responsibility for these meals.
Others
recognized the need of poor families to be provided more food in
addition to Food Stamps. Large charitable groups and churches put
together Food Banks where food was made available to families living
below the poverty level.
The
Castellanos baby would now be 47 years old. I like to think that I
made a small contribution to this person's general health.
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Kathryn
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