By: Ian Boettger
Our endeavor into lunch is very critical for our learning abilities. We need a good hearty meal to keep us going in our hour and a half classes. Therefore, I propose that we should get home cooked meals from chefs at least one day out of the five-day week especially breakfast because it is the most important meal of the day. The current price of school lunch is $2.50 and that is if you just get a regular entrée, we are not the most substantially financed school in Guilford County nor even in North Carolina in itself which is why I suggest we as a community need to lower that price to at least $1.75 for each student even if they don’t already have free lunch.
Each student in North Carolina gets an average $9,000 spent for them grade K-12 meanwhile prisoners on an average get $13,000-$15,000 every 5-6 years so it only makes sense that a student should not get treated like a prisoner.
The current food menu for school are all boxed and don’t even take 20-25 minutes to make. The change to homecooked meals would also create more job opportunities and more pay for them to support their families. Since my sisters went to Page High School, I know they have spent a fortune over the years on making their students the greatest they can be by also having break times implemented and also more clubs and extra curricular activities for them to explore. A lot of people who have graduated there have became alumni because of their great establishment and teaching abilities. Fast food is not the answer to everything like a lot of people say it is, it can create heart attacks in the future, diabetes, high blood pressure, etc. which is not good at all. Fast food is good once in a while but not 3 times a week, 4 times, etc. Yes, it is cheaper and good but it isn’t healthy to eat all the time. For you guys who have kids you don’t want to see them be in pain and hurt because of this poison you call food, you want them to prosper in life and grow old for their children and then their children, etc. Sure, there will be a day when fast food is healthy and still cheap but that is not today nor will it be in a few years, our economy as a country is not the best in the world but it doesn’t mean killing us off like a rat’s nest slowly is the best option. You as a so called “helper” need to listen to some of us teens because we are new generation and a lot of us want to change the world for the better but if you feed us poison we can not do that. If you try it and this goes well then maybe later down the line add other stuff like entertainment such as a radio or play a movie at lunch and if you don’t finish it then just continue it for the next day or two. Also, you should add more drink options to the menu because some people are lactose intolerant and they have to pay extra for a drink that is not milk.
You can also add a ticket system to which if people keep buying lunch for a week or two they have a punch card and when they are all punched out you can pick between a free meal, free dessert, or free drink. You could also partner up with a drink shop whether it be local or your personal shop for people who like coffee and other drinks in the mornings. Instead of that you could also open up the concession stand and or the vending machines for students that want popcorn, drinks, candy, etc. that you can only get after school or at basketball games. The menu for those cooks could consist of homecooked lasagna, spaghetti, salad, eggplant parmesan, types of chicken, etc. When you do that you could have a mini list taped to the counter or wall about how many calories the foods have and how much it is and if they want extra how much that costs.
If you have roughly 1300 students in a single school and lunch is $1.75 and all of them got lunch, you would make $2,275 in a single day (not counting the payments of the workers and cooks) which means that you are making $11,375 a week to supply future days like this. Ingredients for a whole week would be about $1,000 which leaves you with over $10,000 to pay the cashiers, cooks, janitors, etc. You can add different decorations around the cafeteria to make the students and teachers feel better about school and work because they know they are safe, the dullness of the beige colored floors make the school seem so scary and prison like. Add more of our school colors because we as a school like supporting our mascot the wildcats and it’s glorious colors of electric yellow and royal blue. That is all I have for now, thank you for listening to me and taking time out of your schedule.