I applied for reduced-prices school lunch today. I have mixed feelings about it. Anything that lets me spend less money is a good thing. But I much prefer being a contributor than a dependent. For years I’ve willingly paid taxes knowing that some of that money would get spent in welfare programs like school lunch. I always knew that some people take advantage of the system without real need. I never expected to benefit from the programs directly. Defining “real need” is hard. If I look at things one way, we’re rich. We have a house, we have cars, we have food, we’re in no danger of losing those things. On the other hand our income is low. It isn’t permanently low. But we are currently making ends meet by a steady depletion of assets.
In the end I signed up because my kids like getting school lunch with treats we can’t afford at home. I’ll pinch pennies somewhere that the kids won’t feel the pinch.
When I was in somewhere between 4th and 6th grade I had “reduced price”? or maybe free school lunches. Except, I had to work in the kitchen to help earn that “free” lunch. The bad thing was that it made you feel really poor. And it was obvious to other kids that you were helping pass out food and doing dishes and wiping tables.
The good thing was, first dibs on and seconds of good desserts, and the lunch ladies were REALLY nice to you.
Better that they don’t do that anymore…or… maybe all kids Should get a chance to work in the kitchen to appreciate the food they get and the people who work to get it to them?
LightningBoy gets a sack lunch to take to school. And all those other kids getting school lunch (with a tray FULL of food) want to eat his carrots and get a taste of his cookies. interesting.
The treats Sandra has put in kids’ lunches in the past definitely had the other children envious… cake sandwiches, with cream-cheese frosting in the middle, brownies, chocolate chip cookies that were soft without being “fake soft” … it’s all I could do to keep from raiding the pantry for their lunch stuff in order to have snacks myself.
–Howard
Sandra–
I’d like to preface this post by letting you know that I do NOT take your posts about money issues to be “oh, poor me” posts. You always have a very positive attitude about an inherently difficult and frightening situation, and most of us have felt that financial crunch at one point or another.
Since I have not really had the ability to keep up with webcomics (I try to catch up on a few favorites every few months, but it’s been nearly half a year now), I don’t know if Howard is offering anything in particular for sale. Does he have a book yet? Are there plushy Schlocks (and if not, why not? that would be so cool)? I know he’ll commission artwork, but what else is there?
I would love to help support Schlock Mercenary, because it’s a fantastic comic; this would, by default, help you guys out, if even in a small way, which is just an added bonus to me.
(I’m asking YOU instead of Howard because you tend to be a little more accessible, and because I know you know these things.)
I think it’s great that you put your kids first.
I know what it’s like to be in a tight financial situation. Even though you’re better off than some others it doesn’t mean that you don’t occasionally need a bit of a boost, especially if it means being able to give your kids what they need or what’s best for them.
In my kids school all 4-6 graders get a chance to work in the lunchroom if they’re up-to-date on their work and if they want to. Getting to work the lunchroom is a reward and Kiki loved it. They make no distiction between reduced lunch kids and anyone else that I know of.
Right now the only merchandise we have available is t-shirts. You can get them here: http://www.warehouse23.com/info/browse-schlock.html
Howard also occasionally offers desktop backgrounds to people who donate via Paypal. We’re hoping (Pleaseohplease crossmyfingers) to have a book published in time for Christmas. The lack of books is a significant financial oversight that we’re struggling to remedy.
Other than the above the only thing I could think of is if you know people who might want to advertise their goods on our site and you send them to our advertising page: http://www.schlockmercenary.com/advertise/index.html
Making this business plan work is a lot like growing a garden. We’ve got the ground turned over, we’ve got seeds and seedlings, but nothing is big enough to provide much food yet.
All the 4th-6th graders for the school I attended 6th grade had “food lab”. All of the 2nd-3rd graders helped clean up after lunch.
Food lab was actually alot of fun. We got to do more then help hand out the food, we got to help prep it. But then again, that schools 4-6th grades had a total of 27 students, so…