No child left behind

On my latest trip to San Francisco I was confronted with a situation that just seemed odd to me. A man was staring at the inside of a Subway sandwich shop, but not going in. I asked the guy behind the counter if he did that a lot, and the guy said every day. I bought 2 muffins and gave the guy both of them, and the man who was twice my age smiled with a toothless grin and literally broke down in tears. I had to run, I never saw the man in front of that sandwich place again.

I’m not used to seeing pure hunger. People down on their luck, sure, but the image of that man has stuck with me. That’s why this bothers me even more. In this interview with Stephen Colbert, Jeff Bridges explains how kids in the US go hungry during the summer because the schools are not open:

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/427893/july-18-2013/jeff-bridges

Jeff explains how you can text some number to find out where to go eat. That’s a good workaround, but it doesn’t provide a sustained solution. There’s a list on the website of what the organization thinks can be done, and it looks like a fine list, but it doesn’t look like something that can be somewhat immediately.

It’s really disconcerting to me that people go hungry in general, kids more so. I say this without having done much research on the subject at all, so I can’t go out on a limb much here. However, the one thing that I know for sure is that most teachers would not want their students going hungry and would do what they needed to in order to see that happen. I can also say with certainty that most parents do not want to see their children go without food either.

Something has to be done here that doesn’t depend on the entire economy changing for it. I wonder if the interim solution is to simply keep the cafeteria and gymnasium at the schools open during the summer.