@Lumeinshin @LukeAlmighty @renwillis Yeah, I think that I would be more supportive of this. I was just thinking, how can we support children in some of the worst households short of moving them? I definitely thought that having more cooking classes would be beneficial, if they can't be during the school term then they can be before or after school clubs that teach children how to cook. Then they can at least apply those skills in households where parents struggle to cook, but maybe they've got food in the cupboard. Especially in single parent households where a parent is just too busy. By taking dinner out of their hands at a young age, those children get a good meal from an adult. It's not difficult to put together cereal into a bowl or to put together a sandwich when they get home.
I like the idea of also teaching them how to garden and farm. Can use that local produce for school meals then. Don't know if we've had a long thread about that specifically though.
I knew a few kids who had school lunches and whilst I think that they did benefit somewhat, I do worry if all it does is encourage scumbag parents to just take advantage of them forever, rather than be the stop-gap for when times are tough that they were supposed to be, same with pretty much all social schemes sadly
Often times those kids had many more issues too that told me it wasnt just money that was the issue sadly. I knew one that had a parent on bennies that was DEFINITELY faking his issue. Others that just didnt take care of their kid, etc etc.
Even when my family were in a council house scraping by, me and my sibling managed to have a packed lunch, although I think we were always a bit too prideful to accept a benefits scheme, when it probably would've benefited us during those tougher times.