NYC is now offering free meals to adults AND children at public schools

[conuly]

https://www.schools.nyc.gov/school-life/food/free-meals

There's going to be a lot of people relying on this. I just wish they'd bite the bullet and offer meals on the weekends too, or act not just as soup kitchens but as food pantries so that families could stock up and not show up every day.

Comments

[lilysea]

I just wish they'd bite the bullet and offer meals on the weekends too, or act not just as soup kitchens but as food pantries so that families could stock up and not show up every day.

Yes!

I know people need to eat, but they also need to not die of COVID - so a once a week visit to get groceries is a much safer option than 5 visits per week...

[nicki]

School cafeteria service is under contract the same way that the rest of school services are under contract. They basically budget and contract for a year of food delivery and the staff is under contract at a certain level for certain hours. I would guess that they can serve the adults under all their current contracts because they aren't serving all their students, just the ones who need it, so the numbers are a wash. The state also budgets for schools by the year, so they would need to rebudget and then the schools would need to rebudget and hire for a change in staffing levels. They probably also don't have the cold storage capability to act as a food pantry, maybe not even the correct non-perishable storage situation (I don't know the regs on that). They could do it, but it's more complicated than you think looking in from the outside.

[kengr]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure that they don't get the *kinds* of things that'd be usable in a food pantry situation.

#10 cans of whatever are *not* usable by most families. Not without a lot of wastage/spoilage.

Likewise with the huge packages of noodles, flour and whatever.

[conuly]

No, that makes sense.

[rebeccmeister]

I heard from a friend with Ohio connections that in places there, they've been running something of a reverse-schoolbus program, where meals get packed up and delivered by the schoolbuses.

But I have to guess the schoolbus situation looks pretty different for NYC.

[conuly]

We do have schoolbuses, but they're almost entirely for grades k - 6. (Even though it's not really allowed, 7th and 8th graders on Staten Island who don't live close to a real bus route often slip onto the 6th grade buses with the tacit approval of the city.)

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Thus preparing them to be real New Yorkers?

Though, that could so be used to discriminate between who you tacit and who you charge.

[conuly]

Honestly? A lot of those kids have pretty much never left the Island, or if they have it was to visit family or stores in Jersey.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Are they going to Middle School still on the island or no?

(I am Midwestern, so I mostly know the Manhattan/Brooklyn/Queens/Bronx tribulations, but mixed together like some meat dumpling. You know, 1824-2030. The Brooklyn Dodgers are Schrodiger's Cat.)

[conuly]

Staten Islanders are significantly more likely than children in other boroughs to go to school at their closest public school rather than one further away (though a large number of students attend their closest parochial school instead). The nieces are unusual in insisting on going to school in Manhattan.

In NYC, middle school is grades 6 - 8.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

When one gets west but not too West, there are Middle School 6-8 or Junior High 7-9. Different districts handle it differently, often depending on their buildings and student numbers. Naturally this means some elementary go through sixth while others stop at fifth.

[conuly]

There are even other set-ups - like schools that run k-4, 5-8, 9-12 or k-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12, that sor tof thing.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

9-12 is pretty normal here as a High School. We do have places where there are multiple buildings making a campus and those might break k-3, 4-6, 7-9, 10-12. That would have to be somewhere big. I went to a small HS, but we did have five grades. Seniors down to not-freshmen. Typically for extracurriculars those first years would get an upperclassman mentor. Which was fun for me as a junior and senior in theater. In smaller communities they don't have a high school and the kids have to take long bus rides which can mean long waits in the winter dark on the edges of highways.

[ioplokon]

Food pantries are important but it's also important for people to have access to prepared food. One of the reasons takeout restaurants are "essential" is bc not everyone lives somewhere that's set up to refrigerate or cook anything.

[conuly]

No argument here.

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

Which is something that Congress does need a course on. They have passed bills thinking it's still 1930 AND 1955. Because mutually exclusive contrary to fact makes the candy drawer go down better.

[silveradept]

It would be nice if people who are reliant on school meals could get them at all times, since I doubt there's any backpack for the weekend distribution going on, either.

[greghousesgf]

I'm glad they're letting anyone have food, not just families (which is what some food banks do)