The case for Free Breakfasts and Lunch at school

By
Martyn Bradbury
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16
363

My greatest political regret was that MANA wasn’t able to get the Feed the Kids Bill though (thanks to Peter Dunne who was prepared to sell his vote to John Key for mass surveillance but not grant Feed The Kids a 3rd reading).

Feeding every kid a free nutritious Breakfast and Lunch would be the single greatest means to lift educational achievement than any other educational policy.

It would directly remove a huge weekly cost to the poorest amongst us, would greatly reduce truancy and would build life long positive ends to education.

Unfortunately Feed The Kids failed because a large swath of NZ believes feeding hungry children a nutritious breakfast and lunch at school lets the parents off the hook and they would prefer children go hungry than allow free breakfasts or lunch.

Our truancy rate is going to cause a tumour of social cancer that will stunt this nations development.

- Sponsor Promotion -

Feed all the kids in every school free Breakfasts and Lunches so that young peoples first experience of the State is kindness and not shit!

Nothing will attract students from vulnerable communities like knowledge of Breakfast and Lunch.

This policy would do more to put money back into the pockets of the poorest than any other single policy and lift educational achievements.

Hungry kids don’t learn!

When I talk about free breakfast and lunches at school, I’m talking good, nutritious food, not cheap shit!

I’m talking about funding for school gardens and parents paid to come in and help serve the kai.

I’m talking about seeing food security via our schools as an essential for resilience and I think the same level of food subsidy should be provided for RSA, homeless shelters and Churches as well.

We need to get back to basics, and food security is the most basic of basics.

 

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16 COMMENTS

  1. Even back in the glory days of the local economy (1950s-60s), already the school campuses were looking quite backward.

    It was at that time that mess halls serving breakfast and lunch should have been built on every campus — a basic facility for an advanced nation school system.

    Of course back then they were already giving away free milk in the schools, which has also since been canned.

    The campus facilities have barely progressed since then. I am often shocked at the poor quality of the new buildings erected on them, and how many campuses don’t even have basic things like indoor corridors.

  2. Come to our church & we provide a free lunch (there is a donation box which tends to be ignored) every week. It provides for the physical need while also allowing the fellowship that our lifestyles have tended to neglect, it is very rare to see anyone using their phone as they are talking to each other which is a good change from other public waiting areas where most people are using their phone & it is virtually impossible to start a conversation with a stranger.

  3. It may be more cost and health effective to have a bowl of porridge or marmite toast before setting off for school, especially for travelling children – family finances permitting. A decent midday school meal is a no-brainer though, and is a given throughout the civilised world, and it shouldn’t have to be argued about. Primary school children in particular aren’t the best at food foraging.

    Time was when all of these children got free mid -morning milk. I was one of them. In winter, it was made into hot cocoa, very welcome in the chilly shadow of the Alps. Then the National government came along and abolished free milk on hypocritically spurious grounds. The free post-WW11 apples were long gone by then. A third or more of today’s apple crop feeds the ground, not empty bellies.

    Bleating about unhealthy obesity while kids eat badly, or not at all, seems another sort of madness.

    • oh andrew why don’t you get back to bitching about the inevitable results of child deprevation and calling for punishment….divvy

      • Gagarin. Andrew’s sounds like he’s busy drinking a toast to Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher, who gave his lot the mean idea of depriving children of this handy nourishment which should still be available in a country of cows, but hey, kids aren’t nearly as flush with cash as China.

  6. “Feeding the kids should be our first priority as a nation.”
    You’d think, wouldn’t you. Well loved and nurtured children will grow up to be nurturing and loving.
    Unfortunately, they’re not the priority.
    These cunts are. Dear ol, fatherly and motherly ol westpac. Their hypocrisy is gag worthy. Their net profits are obscene. If you and you or you are still banking with a foreign owned bankster you’re certainly dumber than you’ll definitely look.
    RNZ. ( They keep forgetting the AO. As in RAONZ isn’t that strange? Weird? Odd? Suspicious? )
    https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/business/484972/consumers-to-rein-in-spending-with-higher-mortgage-rates-westpac
    “Consumers are expected to tighten their belts as many more mortgaged homeowners are rolling over to much higher interest rates than before.” How about instead we roll over to you fucks at westpac and burn you fucking down? How about that?
    Even the word ‘Consumer’ has an unsettling ring to it. It’s as if people who spend their money on stuff and things, as we all do, and that’s why it’s called money bankster-fuckers, that we’re somehow a strange and exotic alien life form. Well, perhaps we are but what is it about us that we fall into lock step with greedy, psychopathic corporate entities who have us believing, read brainwashed, that we owe it to them, the foreign owned banks, to give our money away to them when we could be spending it on school lunches and nice sneakers. After all! It was THEY who grotesquely over inflated our house prices in the first place. I mean what the fuck! ???
    Oh, and a word on the word ‘nation’. Every time our Aotearoa / New Zealand’s referred to as a ‘nation’ I get up a little bit of sick. Why is that? A proud Naaaaation. I see a beautiful person with tight glutes and tremendous calf muscles standing on the crest of a hill, a rare hill that’s not covered in cow or sheep shit, with their chests puffed out before a glorious golden sunset. Their ample and glossy hair’s are blowing out past their fly buttons as they jut out their jaw in unhinged awesomeness while they survey their glorious Naaaaaaation dahlings! Yuk.
    Neoliberalism still has us in a death roll. All our political parties are all neoliberal. Every.Single.One.Of.Them.
    That means we’re politically rudderless and directionless while rolling about on a deep and cold ocean full of hungry sharks. But wait! Look! Hooray! It’s the westpac rescue helicopter! Oh fuck.

  7. other countries korea/japan/scandi do it and do it well…kitchens on the premises(local produce where possible or at least NZ), no corprate input and REAL investment, all of which means it won’t happen in NZ

  8. I have no doubt kids need food before or at school in order to concentrate for more than five minutes. It’s not the schools job to feed kids but if they’re Hungary they won’t learn anything. We had milk at school as kids and it worked. The other advantage with milk or oat milk etc, is that it’s easy to organise and distribute. No need for large kitchens or large numbers of volunteer labour. In our day the milk was delivered to the schools and the kids took turns to deliver it to the class rooms. It could also be consumed at any time either in or out of the class room. resuming this would be relatively simple although there could be some difficulties at isolated schools. Cartoned milk means it won’t go off like some of the bottled stuff in our day. Fonterra could be encouraged to discount it which would take a bit of pressure off the tax payer. Lets do this!!!

    • And now, as Prime Minister, may actually convert that opportunity. I say we give him that mandate. Food in schools for all our children. Love, compassion and full bellies for everyone. That’s New Zealand’s future right there.

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