As Dave Huber of The College Fix reports, students at Chicago’s Roosevelt High School are “fed up,” to quote NPR’s Scott Simon, with their free cafeteria food. And the students aren’t going to take it. In fact, they’re boycotting the gratis grub.
“We want our school to be better,” Jacquez Conwell, a junior at Roosevelt High School participating in the student protest of the “crap” meals, told HuffPost. “It’s not fair for us kids, us teenagers, to go through the day where we’re not satisfied. And if we’re not satisfied, we’re not learning anything and we’re not focused.”
Conwell is one of many Roosevelt students participating in a campaign that’s been titled The School Lunch Project.
Late last month, students debuted their website featuring photos of unappetising food they’ve been served at school, including images of still-frozen fruit cups, spoiled produce and questionable meat.
…“Lunch time is the time where you eat and enjoy your free time,” the students’ website reads. “It’s supposed to be the place where students get the best healthy lunches like salads, sandwiches, fresh fruits, etc. Instead they give some gross, unhealthy food.”
Every student gets a free lunch (if they want) in Chicago schools so that, as NPR notes in its report on the boycott, there is no stigma for low-income students.
