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these type of food trucks may out number the few con's,jmo.
Wouldn't the food trucks have to give out their lunches for free? Because if kids are getting a free lunch they presumably don't have money to buy it.
“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.”
-Joseph Brodsky
"I'm at that stage in life where I stay out of discussions. Even if you say 1+1=5, you're right - have fun." - Keanu Reeves
Good morning HOTPE.
Yes the food from the trucks would come free or reduced. The food can be prepared and picked up at the local schools that qualify for the programs. This way poor kids or folks won't be left out due to no or limited transportation. As we know gas is not cheap in puna and is not paid for with EBT cards.
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I think part of the idea of free meals at school is to get people to actually go to school.
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Doesn't make sense to have free meals when the parents can qualify for generous EBT. Instead of holding people accountable we give giving them more opportunities to scam.
Good morning PaulW, that's a valid point you made.
These summer food programs for kids should also be including tool backpacks and optional educational activities for the kids at those local schools that qualified. I am Not sure that the best way to feed the keiki is to rely on parents that are working or don't have reliable transportation to get them to those meals.
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It's a hard choice when the only way to make the parents responsible seems to be to deny the kids a decent diet. Choosing to do that could easily come back to bite us in an even more profound way. And the worst part may be the culture of dependency that this engenders. We are now several generations into a situation where a significant number of families see free school lunches and food stamps/EBT cards as the natural order of things.
On a local level, Puna and much of the Big Island seem to have a cultural and political bias against any sort of economic development that might alleviate dependency. Whether it's geothermal energy, the TMT, or just an enterprise zone, people always find some reason to block it. And then they express dismay when those students who somehow come out of the subpar local schools with excellent skills end up moving to the mainland. We need to break the cycle somehow, but I don't know how. Rant over.
