Free Meals

This was on Facebook it’s a restaurant in my area. Sorry I’ve made it anonymous of course! “. In response to the latest news regarding the government’s negative action on Marcus Rashford’s plea for help, Ristorante Xxxxxxx is offering free essentials to any family living in the Xxxxxx area requiring help during next week’s school holidays.
Don’t be afraid or embarrassed to send us a private message. We will do what we can to help. It may simply be a case of dropping off a parcel and leaving. No one has to know and where others are concerned, it never happened.

Please share to make people aware.

Thankyou,
Team Xxxxxxxxx Ristorante“

How shaming to the government that this is what has to happen

Signed both!

In Northumberland many small local businesses are offering a free packed lunch, a very positive move.

There is an initiative that I am signed up to called FreeMyMeal..
check it out on FB. It connects cooks with people in need of a meal.

Gwyneth, I did say that I agreed with your comment , however I was trying to balance the discussion with my own experiences. No need to reiterate your original comment, I understood exactly the point you were making. No-one is criticising your post.

Did you experience the humiliation of having free meals? You were indeed fortunate that you had a home with a garden and your father could supplement your diet. Some of us never experienced that luxury.

Initially I lived in a tenement flat with an outside toilet, shared by three families. Our garden was a backdoor drying area , with a shared wash house and slum outhouses. Nowhere to grow food. However, it's not a competition about who had the poorest upbringing.
This image, could have been my back garden at five years old. Thank goodness we have moved on from that, but no child should go hungry today. I know what it was like and it makes me so angry that it is still happening.

Not matter who or what is responsible for children going hungry today , they have a right to food and no-one should be against the free meals during school holidays initiative.

The petition is not about free school meals!

Gwyneth

Marydoll again can I reiterate what I said in my original post that this is not always the case. There are indeed different scenarios where people are really struggling through no fault of their own. Equally there are parents who should take more responsibility for their children. I also grew up in a home where money was very short but we had a garden and my father was able to grow a lot of our food.

You were fortunate! What about the children who grow up in flats or crowded back/back houses or those who don't even have permanent housing? What about the ones whose parents are too ill/disabled/work too many hours to do gardening?

Grandmabatty

If I misunderstood stood you Gwyneth I apologise. However you say families shouldn't be dependent on the state. And you quite clearly link parents smoking and drinking to children going hungry. In my experience, that was rarely the reason why children needed free school meals. And at no point did I say people couldn't hold different views to mine. You appear to be rather nettled by my views.

I worked with children in secondary schools for years and it wasn't my experience either. Thank goodness, school meals are now paid for digitally and "vouchers" issued to those needing them. Nobody, except school admin staff, know who's receiving free school meals. Nevertheless, teachers did know which families were struggling and it was for a variety of reasons, such as illness, death, redundancy, marital breakdown, etc etc. There were very few stereotypical "scrounger" families.

Marydoll again can I reiterate what I said in my original post that this is not always the case. There are indeed different scenarios where people are really struggling through no fault of their own. Equally there are parents who should take more responsibility for their children. I also grew up in a home where money was very short but we had a garden and my father was able to grow a lot of our food.

Times have always been hard especially in some areas with exceptionally high unemployment.
Factor in now, parents who might have lost their livelihood because of Covid - and before anybody starts bleating about furlough or government handouts - there are many who fall into the poverty trap with little hope of finding another job and have already used up what savings they might have had.
Mortgages or rent, , council tax, energy bills all need to be paid, unless you want to make your family homeless and for our MP’s to reject a vote on free meals when they enjoy heavily subsidised meals themselves is the ultimate insult.
Shame on you HoC.

Our views may also be influenced and coloured by our own personal experiences: where and who we taught as teachers, how we were brought up and perhaps having the experience of living in extreme poverty or conversely living comfortably in a very affluent family.
They are all valid.

kircubbin2000

I see a lot of businesses have made up packs of oats,pasta and veg.However many parents can't or won't cook and as for the fruit and veg my grandson would go hungry before he tried those! I think a lot will be wasted.

How do you know? Do you have CCTV in their kitchens? Or is it what you've heard/seen/read?

Sighed the change.org.
The politicians should hang their heads in shame not voting this through.

Gwyneth Did they have enormous TVs and multiple holidays as well?

Grandmabatty not ‘nettled’ by your views at all just wanted to point out that we have all had different experiences and should be free to express them as part of a discussion in a polite way of course! Thank you for your apology.

Wise words Marydoll. And the school meals debacle has been on the agenda since we were at primary school. I remember the different queues for the haves and the have nots. We ourselves found that we were in the queue when another of our fathers business ventures failed. Neither of our parents drank or smoked so which banner do we fall in as poor kids needing a meal. Personally, I feel all kids need free meals at primary school, as it's when their bodies and brains are in need of good quality nutrition.

Thanks for posting this, midgey
I intended to but am having a few IT problems

If I misunderstood stood you Gwyneth I apologise. However you say families shouldn't be dependent on the state. And you quite clearly link parents smoking and drinking to children going hungry. In my experience, that was rarely the reason why children needed free school meals. And at no point did I say people couldn't hold different views to mine. You appear to be rather nettled by my views.

I see a lot of businesses have made up packs of oats,pasta and veg.However many parents can't or won't cook and as for the fruit and veg my grandson would go hungry before he tried those! I think a lot will be wasted.

I agree, that may be true in some cases, but let me give a different scenario, Gwyneth.
Husband commits suicide, barely literate mother takes on three cleaning jobs at the minimum wage (that's all she could find) to keep a roof over her head and feed her two boys.
Doesn't smoke or drink, just wants to do the best for her family. She was a broken and exhausted woman and so grateful for what little help she got.
Should someone like her, be denied support over the school holidays?

I was a free school meals child, who got a clothing grant to pay for the very expensive school uniform for my convent grammar school, where the nuns had no conception of what real poverty was. I felt so ashamed of being the poor girl, who had to stand up in the class every day and say I was a free meal. My mother had to swallow her pride and claim for those meals. I never told her about the humiliation I experienced.

My father started work at ten years old, as a van boy with a laundry and had to retire at from his job as an ambulance driver due to chronic ill health.
My mother, a highly qualified nursing sister had to give up her job to look after him. There was no attendance allowance etc in those days. The only income was a invalidity benefit, he was too young to access his pension.
They neither smoked or drank.
Not every parent of those who get free school meals, drinks or smokes.
I hope now you can understand why I am so passionate about this. Not everyone sets out to sponge off the state
As they say, Walk in my shoes or even better, my mother's shoes.

This is devastating, even more devastating to teach children that they are worth nothing and not cared about in all settings. School has a huge impact in a child's life. That's a place where children can be taught they are all equal and valued. We cannot expect these children to grow up with any pride and respect by refusing to give them any.

I can't believe anyone could agree to any child going hungry no matter the cost. Especially if that is based on what the parents may or may not be doing with their money. It's writing children off before they even have a chance.

Some parents are neglectful or inadequate but that doesn’t make it ok that their children go hungry. Maybe if a Tory donor offered to make free school meals, whether or not they know anything about catering, they could be bunged a few million quid.

Grandmabatty

I didn’t say that at all read my post!!! To repeat .....I said that I didn’t know what the answer was and I also said that children should not go hungry but parents also need to take some responsibility for their children otherwise why bother having them in the first place. I also said very clearly that I was speaking from my own experience which is obviously different to yours. Is no one else allowed to say anything different from you?

So Gwyneth you want to punish the children for their parents? I think it's a terrible situation where children go hungry in a country where millions wasted. And like Marydoll, I taught in a school with a high free meal entitlement. These children went hungry during holidays.

Children often go hungry because their parents choose to spend their money on other things. I agree this is not always the case but during a long career working with children I have seen parents who both smoke and drink heavily as well as having the latest technology. Consequently there is no money left for food. Children should not be going without food but providing more and more from the State only encourages more dependency from parents and they continue with their lifestyle unaffected. I believe a packet of cigarettes now costs around £12.00 and if both parents smoke this amounts to £24.00 a day which could be spent on food. I honestly don’t know where the answer lies only pointing out what I have seen over the years.