There's No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

Insights From the Girl with the Wooden Lunch Chip

Kick Off School Lunch Program Minnesota, 1971 PUBLIC DOMAIN DIGITAL PUBLIC LIBRARY of AMERICA

(Note: No reading today, having some technical issues.)

Hello, Friend,

I was in fourth grade, an awkward new kid in another new school. Frizzy haired, funky toothed, and precocious, I fit in better with adults than I did other children. We were living in a tiny basement apartment, my two younger sisters and I sharing a bedroom so small navigating the space between our beds without stubbing a toe was a challenge. Our mom had her own tiny bedroom by the tiny kitchen, not much larger than a pantry. She was a single mother with three young children and no child support doing her absolute best to keep it and us together. I have no idea how she did it.

My new elementary school had a program for low income kids to get a free hot meal every day. I don’t know what genius came up with this idea, but the kids who got the free lunches had to pay for them with a wooden chip that read FREE LUNCH in capital letters. This signaled to the other kids (who already had plenty of reasons to bully me) that I was poor. This was in Bala Cynwyd on the Philadelphia Main Line. Most of these kids were mega rich. We’re talking olde money, country club, clenched jaw rich and new money, nouveau riche, status symbol rich.

I was neither.

Not only was I the odd girl out, I was the poor kid with the wooden lunch chip. Every lunch period was an exercise in creativity. Hang back at the end of the line. Skip lunch by hiding in the bathroom. Act as if it was no big deal while enduring the snickers and whispers from the kids behind me.

The wooden lunch chip sucked.

Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful for the lunch. I just wish it wasn’t served with a side of humiliation.

One afternoon mid-school year, I got to lunch late in the hopes that I’d be last in line. The other kids were lined up on both sides of the hallway. It was super quiet as I approached. I knew something was up. Then they began to chant:

“Margot Lipp is a gyp. Margot Lipp is a gyp.”

I’ve never in my life been as humiliated as I was that day. Had it been possible for me to shrink myself and sneak away I’d have done it in a heartbeat. The entire fourth grade mocking the girl with the wooden lunch chip. Lacking an alternative, I held my head high and proceeded to the lunch line. The other kids were chanting and laughing. I was shaking so badly I was afraid I’d drop my tray, but I would be damned if I let them see me cry. I sat alone at a table in the corner and ate every last bite. I went home that afternoon and cried until I didn’t have a single tear left.

When they say there’s no such thing as a free lunch, they aren’t freaking kidding.

In the grand scheme of things we had much more than most. A roof over our heads, food to eat, a parent who loved and cared for us. We moved again the following year. I was able to pack my own lunches in a plain paper sack and leave the shame of the wooden lunch chip behind in my old school. I never told anyone about that day, but I never forgot.

People don’t choose poverty. Helping the least among us is our sacred calling as humans. Most people who receive assistance only need it for a short time. DOGE is dismantling The Department of Education and food assistance programs. It will have devastating consequences for the poor, but the rich will get their assistance, bailouts, and tax breaks. That’s what matters most in our Neo-Gilded Age.

We’re losing our humanity, our compassion, and our capacity for kindness. We’re becoming increasingly selfish, hateful, and hurtful people. We’re more concerned with the rights of fetuses than the well being of our children. The relentless drum beat of the Big Lie has convinced millions of Americans that their neighbors, family, and fellow citizens are their enemies. Distracted, divided, deluded, we’re freefalling into autocracy.

How do we break the spell? How do we convince people that kindness counts and everyone is is entitled to basic human rights?

I may be the girl with the wooden lunch chip, but I’m also the woman of substance forged from the fire of my struggles. I’ll be damned if I sit on the sidelines and participate even by proxy in the dismantling of everything that makes life worth living. I will not give up. I will not back down. I will not be silent. I hold hope that I will live to see the day when poverty is eradicated, community is elevated, and kindness is celebrated.

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If you’d like to do something to help feed our children, pay off school lunch debt, and end the humiliation children face at school if their debt is unpaid, consider donating to All for Lunch and Lunch for All.

Their mission:

ELIMINATE SCHOOL LUNCH DEBT AND FIGHT AGAINST CHILDHOOD FOOD INSECURITY. We work with schools to pay off school lunch debt so kids can have access to school lunch regardless of their financial situation at home. We also fund All for Lunch Reserve Accounts to cover the cost of lunch if a child does not have the money to pay.

The cold hard truth:

Children as young as 5 years old may be given an alternate meal as a result of lunch debt. This typically happens in front of their peers in the lunch line where they may receive only a bread and cheese sandwich. In some districts, students may miss field trips, dances and even walking in their graduations due to school lunch debt. Your tax-deductible donation goes towards our fight against childhood food insecurity and taking the stress of lunch debt off a child’s plate.

Alternately, you can contact your local school district and ask them how you can help pay off student lunch debt and fund free lunches for children in need. No child should ever go without lunch or be humiliated for being poor.

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