As an educator after 38 years of service, it is very important to me to express my views on our school food service system.

After years of seeing so many students hungry at school and being expected to learn, it is with a heartfelt request that there has to be something that can be done to alleviate hunger in our schools.

Teachers, including myself, have paid their bills just so they could eat. The free breakfast and lunch programs are good programs, but there are parents who won’t fill out the application and sign it for various reasons, such as complacency of this being taken care of or are of a different mindset.

Instead, these children are bullied, ostracized and feel degraded. They are pinpointed as owing money in front of their peers.

After the emphasis is on improving test scores, violence to decrease, it begins with a child that is not hungry, embarrassed or having multi-faceted issues as a result of this.

Our children are our future.

This is an issue that needs addressing. We as adults should be role models and mentors.

It will affect them into adulthood. If there were corporations or civic and social clubs that would adopt one school and pay for the entire bill for the year, this would be a tremendous step.

If there are parents who don’t want their child’s food to be paid, then a school fund could be established to contribute to the ongoing effort to stop this.

Everyone would be equal.

What a way to not only feed the children, but promote self-esteem, increase test scores and decrease violence.

We definitely need to help our children here in our county.

Jimmie Quinn
Mount Pleasant