Imagine this; you’re sitting in class, waiting for the bell to ring, and you’ve had to endure the feeling of your stomach growling for what feels like eternity. Then it rings, finally you can get lunch, or so you think. But when you go to get in line you find that possibility has left the building , and barely moving at that. You probably won’t need to take the time to imagine, because that’s what lunch is really like.
When I first heard about lunch being free for the 2021-2022 school year, I was ecstatic. Lunch money was always a bit of a hassle to get, and I finally didn’t have to bug my parents about it. But after just the first week I realized eating the school lunch wasn’t going to be an option this year. Unless you can run to the cafeteria just in time, you have almost no luck getting your lunch within the first 10 to 15 of your lunch period to eat. Numerous students haven’t been able to get lunch even before the first 20 minutes and are left with five minutes to shove as much as they can in their face or just give up and hope to have food at home.
Free lunch is supposed to benefit the students, but the people who need free lunch don’t always have a chance to get it. We need it to change. Our current lunch situation is unfair to our students and the faculty working in the cafeteria who are having to keep up with the wave of students trying to get lunch. All the students should have the chance to get it.
I won’t pretend to understand the entire situation, but even something as simple as multiple lines, prepackaging food to be more of a grab and go or, smaller lunch sizes, more lines, anything. There has to be something to help it even if only a bit.
It’s time to accommodate our school’s size, and find a way for everyone to be ensured a lunch with time to eat it.