They said they don't have that problem in that district. All of the lunches and breakfasts are taken care of. Yay taxes!
Still not daunted, I called the next district over and said. "I want to put $20 on a kid's past due lunch account."
They asked, "Which child?"
I said, "Is there some sort of master past due account or something?"
They said, "No. You can pay for a child you know or pay for all of them. Do you know a child in the district?"
I said, "No. I just thought it would be a good deed."
They said," Let me get back to you."
That was a week ago and after several phone calls back and forth, mainly, I assume to make sure that I am not some sort of weirdo, I got a call asking me if I wanted to meet with the principal about the matter.
I work in the adjacent school district (kinda) and once they found out who I was they became suspicious, as though I was spying or something. Nope. I just wanted to help a hungry child. Then came the debate about whether or not this was some kind of publicity stunt. Nope. I just wanted to help a hungry child.
I only had about $20 in my wallet and more than likely I was going to spend it at Starbucks so I had thought, "Why not?" I believe that I am on some sort of watch list somewhere now and though we have no idea what kind of ties Donald Trump has to Russia, somewhere someone knows that I wanted to donate $20 to a local school and is wondering why.
Well if you are reading this, NSA or whoever, it is because we should have an urge to help others, children especially, even if they are not related to us or in our orbit. As a society, we all benefit from a well educated population and electorate. Paul Ryan, whose family received public aid notwithstanding, I would hope that a child would grow up and remember that someone unrelated to him or her did something for the them and the good of society. Karma and all that jazz.
So, as a teacher (kinda), I wanted to see where our children's minds are in reference to society at large.
Last week on Earth Day, I ended a morning covered in dirt and stale beer. We had collected A LOT 
of aluminum cans for our kids' can drive. We ended up turning in $234.17 worth of aluminum cans. Then this morning came the question of what to do with the money. The adults sat around Starbucks this morning thinking. We looked at the little things that we had to pay for and we looked at how we wanted to proceed with our gardening project for next year and beyond.
We decided the best thing that we could do was to leave it up to the kids. 100 3rd graders in Seattle, Augusta, Atlanta, and Greenville SC have until Monday to decide what to do with $234.17. On Monday, I leave for Haiti to help a small village join our network of schools with gardens. They were told they could send it along with me to Haiti. They could use it and the $20 I was throwing in to help pay for school lunches. They also have until Monday to write a bill for whatever they want to do with it. As long as 51 of them agree, they can do whatever they want. They could have a pizza party, save the money, or even have me light it on fire.I like to believe that we are teaching them a lesson, but I believe it is more the other way around and we are learning from them. The results of this vote will tell us a lot about who we are and where we are as a nation. I think this is far more interesting than any recent vote in our history, more important that District 6 in Georgia, more important than the national election because I think it will tell us a great deal more about the state of our nation overall.
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