Dear Future President,

My name is Hailey Dost, I am 14 years old I go to Marysville Charter Academy of The Arts. I am writing this letter to address an issue that is important to me. I believe that students should have free school lunches. If we get free school lunches they have to be good lunches.

Some people believe that school is a choice so there for lunches for students is not that big of a deal. The law says we have to got to school and what type of school you go to isn’t always your choice so to say. Some children have many options on where they choose to go to school while others do not. Many people put their kids in schools they don’t get to choose and some aren’t good or beneficial to their child. The school district also states that children must go to school for a certain amount of days. They can only miss so many. So what if you can pick your school that may or may not be a choice. For many schools what is never a choice is the option of giving children lunches. The schools have different rules based on what the district says. If the district doesn’t offer enough money lunch prices go up and we lose fun programs. High school is hard to because I live in an area where nobody even knows where we are. So me finding a good high school suiting my needs is hard.

I have two younger sisters who have to take a lunch to school. when we run low on food for them to take they don’t take enough to eat. It hurts me when they may only take a sandwich and an applesauce to school to be able to say enough for the rest of the week. The school doesn’t notice because they only care about the children who pay a lot of money for a hot lunch. If free lunch is provided they could must make sure they have enough to eat and we could save money on buying them food. When school lunch is given for free it usually isn’t good they tell us it is “Healthy, good food”. We watch it come out of freezers and in gross prepackaged containers. Why are students stuck eating gross free/ reduced food because it is cheaper. That is just as bad as giving them a TV dinner or Top Ramen, this isn’t healthy or even acceptable for children to eat.

Have you ever heard of Food Scarcity, I know you have but it is when a child/ adult doesn’t know where their next meal is. Many children only eat one meal and it isn’t breakfast or lunch. Sometimes not even dinner they go to school hungry and can’t afford to buy lunch or bring one from home. We can help them at least get more than one meal a day if free lunches for students are given to everyone. It could help the parents, and the students.

Sincerely

Hailey Dost