一个非营利组织如何压制“午餐羞辱者”

一个非营利组织如何压制“午餐羞辱者”

When I was a kid, it was the red lunch ticket. Today it's the plain cheese sandwich. In both instances the message is loud, clear and humiliating: "This child does not have enough money for lunch."

当我还是个孩子的时候，这是一张红色的午餐券。今天是原味奶酪三明治。在这两种情况下，信息都是响亮、清晰和羞辱性的:“这个孩子没有足够的钱吃午饭。”

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Kids should not be punished for financial issues that are out of their control. (Photo: New Africa/Shutterstock)

I'm sure those tickets were part of some well-intentioned plan to count the number of kids utilizing the subsidized program, but for the kids in the lunchroom, those tickets screamed poverty louder than any words ever could have.

我相信这些票是一些善意计划的一部分，目的是为了统计有多少孩子在使用补贴计划，但是对于餐厅里的孩子们来说，这些票比任何语言都更能表达贫困。

It's no secret that budgets are tight at schools across the country. For many, the unpaid balances on school lunch accounts add up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Surely there's a better way to recoup these funds than shaming kids in front of other students.

全国各地学校的预算都很紧张，这不是什么秘密。对许多人来说，学校午餐账户上的未付余额总计达数十万美元。肯定有比在其他学生面前羞辱孩子更好的方式来收回这些资金。

Enter the Lunch Angel

午餐天使登场

Kenny Thompson (aka the Lunch Angel) has created his own solution to this problem. Thompson, a tutor and mentor at a Houston elementary school, was having lunch with one of his mentees when that child's lunch was taken away and replaced with a cheese sandwich.

肯尼·汤普森(又名午餐天使)为这个问题提出了自己的解决方案。汤普森是休斯敦一所小学的教师和导师。他和一名学生共进午餐时，那名学生的午餐被拿走了，换成了奶酪三明治。

Feed the Future Forward raises funds by hosting charity events and collecting donations. The group uses all proceeds to pay off outstanding balances at school cafeterias in the Houston area. Since its launch last year, the program has expanded from one school to nearly 141 schools and 150,000 students in seven school districts.

通过举办慈善活动和募集捐款来筹集资金。该组织将所有收益用于支付休斯顿地区学校食堂的未付余额。自去年启动以来，该项目已从一所学校扩展到近141所学校和七个校区的15万名学生。

A federal mandate

联邦授权

It's a solution that opened the door for other approaches. In 2017, the Department of Agriculture set July 1 as the deadline for all states to establish policies on how to be respectful of schoolchildren who cannot pay for their lunches.

这个解决方案为其他方法打开了大门。2017年，美国农业部(Department of Agriculture)将7月1日定为所有州制定政策的最后期限，内容是如何尊重那些交不起午餐费用的学童。

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 required the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to study the issue. In response, the USDA asked schools to put a policy in place, but it allowed local discretion on the content of the policy, according to the Food Research & Action Center. (In fact the USDA has a helpful Q&A section as well as policy guidance for those who haven't instituted new rules yet.)

《2010年健康、无饥饿儿童法案》要求美国农业部(USDA)研究这一问题。美国食品研究与行动中心(Food Research & Action Center)说，作为回应，美国农业部要求学校制定相关政策，但允许地方自行决定政策的内容。(事实上，美国农业部有一个很有帮助的问答部分，还为那些还没有制定新规定的人提供了政策指导。)

Some cities and states have already addressed it. California outlawed lunch shaming in October 2019, ensuring that even a student with an unpaid bill will receive a hot lunch. New Mexico passed a law in March 2017 that directs schools to speak only with the parents about financial matters and prohibits the "cold cheese sandwich" approach. Minnesota, San Francisco and Houston also recently adopted anti-lunch-shaming policies, to name just a few.

一些城市和州已经解决了这个问题。2019年10月，加州宣布午餐羞辱为非法，确保即使是没有付账的学生也能吃到热午餐。2017年3月，新墨西哥州通过了一项法律，要求学校只与家长谈论经济问题，并禁止“冷奶酪三明治”的做法。举几个例子，明尼苏达、旧金山和休斯顿最近也采取了反午餐羞辱政策。