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"Cheese sandwich. Fruit. Milk. OK, it&amp;#x27;s not the most luxurious lunch, but it&amp;#x27;s free to students in New Mexico&amp;#x27;s largest school district whose parents can&amp;#x27;t afford to send them with a brown bag or pay for the hot-meal option. The technicality? Supposedly the parents can afford to. These are students whose parents have accrued a tab for hot lunches that were provided to their kids sans money. These are not children on state aid, but with the economic crisis, the area is very gray as to who can actually afford what, even if on paper it says they can. For example, on paper I can certainly afford health care for JD and every month I make an out-of-pocket health care payment. But, ya know what? I&amp;#x27;m a single mom with a lot of solo financial responsibilities--it would be nice to have help in this area. Everyone deserves health care! Now this cheese sandwich thing, um, I don&amp;#x27;t think it&amp;#x27;s that bad. Do you? JD and I really like cheese, though, so maybe I&amp;#x27;m biased. Sometimes we have &amp;quot;cheese board lunches.&amp;quot; Cheese. Fruit. Bread. I chop everything up on a wooden cutting board. It&amp;#x27;s quite lovely. Pre-baby, a little red wine and I&amp;#x27;m having a fancy-a*s meal, if I do say so myself. Now I realize the students at the Albuquerque public schools aren&amp;#x27;t sampling three different kinds of cheese, with a grape and berry (maybe green apple) pairing, but I disagree with the critics who say &amp;quot;Cold meals are a form of punishment for children whose parents can&amp;#x27;t afford to pay.&amp;quot; What&amp;#x27;s wrong with a cold lunch? Carlo, Brian and I went to Catholic school K-8. At one point, the school instituted a lunch program where our parents paid monthly if we wanted &amp;quot;hot food.&amp;quot; There was a menu, and at the end of every month we selected what we wanted. My mom volunteered to hand out the lunch, too. I rarely wanted anything. My parents made yummy brown-bag lunches: cold turkey and cheese sandwiches (sometimes just cheese and tomato--I heart cheese, people!), a Lipton iced tea box and a piece of fresh fruit. Maybe something sweet, too. Now, I get that parents in this school district can&amp;#x27;t necessarily afford deli meat and bread for a week&amp;#x27;s worth of lunch (maybe PB&amp;amp;J a few times a week?). My point is, the kids are not going hungry. In fact, they enjoyed hot meals for free until this cheese sandwich operation started. I think the parents should be grateful that their kids are given, quite frankly, a healthy, cold lunch. It&amp;#x27;s healthier than a hot burger-and-fries lunch. Sure, the cheese on the (most likely) white bread sandwich is probably processed (though loaded with calcium). But it&amp;#x27;s not like these kids are eating mushy mystery meat. And here&amp;#x27;s a thought: Grill the cheese sandwiches. Bam! They&amp;#x27;re hot and it didn&amp;#x27;t cost a ton extra for a few swipes of butter or even more economical, cooking spray. Single mom, Darlene Vigil said: &amp;quot;Some parents don&amp;#x27;t have even $1 sometimes...if they do, it&amp;#x27;s for something else, like milk at home. There are some families that just don&amp;#x27;t have it, and that&amp;#x27;s the reason they&amp;#x27;re not paying.&amp;quot; Vigil applied for state aid. There is a FREE AND CLEAR lunch program for families that can&amp;#x27;t afford to pay for their child&amp;#x27;s food. While the application was being processed, her daughter Denessa was given cold lunches. Denessa said she&amp;#x27;ll never eat a slice of cheese again and that it makes her feel like she wants to &amp;quot;throw up.&amp;quot; I sympathize with Denessa. She&amp;#x27;s in second grade and can&amp;#x27;t possibly understand the big picture. Her mom should try to explain it to her, in simple terms. In my own household, what I cook, JD eats. Sometimes he doesn&amp;#x27;t want grilled lemon chicken and avocado, but he eats it. I make him. The ped said he absolutely won&amp;#x27;t starve himself. So a couple of airplane noises later and maybe I dip the chicken in no-sugar-added applesauce and there ya have it, kid is gobbling it up. I know I&amp;#x27;m rattling off fancy foods here and that I can&amp;#x27;t possibly compare my single mom situation with one who has either a buck for milk or a buck for lunch. But I do agree with the people who &amp;quot;flooded talk-radio shows thanking the district for imposing a policy that commands parental responsibility.&amp;quot; No one is denying the children food. The kids are being fed. In fact, Mary Swift, director of Albuquerque&amp;#x27;s food and nutrition services confirms some districts don&amp;#x27;t allow children to eat anything if they don&amp;#x27;t have money. Bet those kids would love a cheese sandwich, apple and carton of milk. Seriously though, if you, the parent can&amp;#x27;t afford to feed your child, then apply for state aid. The parents need to be parents. This isn&amp;#x27;t even about cheese--it&amp;#x27;s making sure one way or another your kid has lunch! Read the full story here--then sound off! What do you make of this free cold lunch controversy? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/sex-love-life/blogs/storked/2009/02/cheese-sandwich-fresh-fruit-mi>