Out of the mouths of babes

A Utah school district got a lot of negative publicity this week over a problem with school lunches. It seems that some students with a negative balance on their lunch accounts were served lunch, and then a school employee walked over and took those lunches and threw them in the garbage. (Better to feed the trash can than a hungry kid, right?)

I’ve spent a lot of time in public schools. I know a lot of teachers, administrators, and school staff, and I cannot imagine any of them walking up to a hungry child and taking his or her food away. I cannot imagine what kind of person does this. The school staff I know would bend over backwards to help a kid, and many of them do so at their own expense – buying supplies, snacks, working countless hours that never qualify as overtime.

But in this elementary school in Utah, the children were publicly humiliated and perfectly good food was wasted, all because of what again? The district has since apologized, is examining its policies, and responding to the outraged parents. Maybe this will all go down as one big, though humiliating, mistake for these elementary school kids.

But while parents in Utah and across the country were incensed and the media responded with outrage, a much bigger travesty is taking food off the plates of millions of American children. The House of Representatives has passed a farm bill which will cut $800 million a year from the food stamp program (SNAP – supplemental nutrition assistance program).  We are supposed to be glad that the cut isn’t bigger. The Republican-controlled House had wanted to cut is by five times that amount. Apparently we are getting off easy here …

Really?

Because a 2011 study showed that 1 in 4 American children are on food stamps and 75% of families receiving assistance include a child, senior citizen, or disabled adult. That means our Congress – the folks we pay to represent us – are threatening to take food off the plates of 19.9 million children here in the United States.

I don’t know exactly how this will play out, and how many families will see their benefits cut, but I do know this: every parent, teacher, and compassionate adult in America should be as outraged and as LOUD as those parents in Utah. We should demand the same media attention and public outcry for each and every child who goes hungry because of this. Demand that the Senate defeat this bill. Demand that the president veto it. Demand that American children be fed.

Right now, we can see the face of someone who would take away a child’s lunch. It’s the face of John Boehner and the 250 other congressmen who voted for it. But if we allow it, if we don’t raise our voices and demand that our government protect, nurture and feed our children, then we’ll have to look in the mirror too.

Raising our Voices

I was very saddened to hear today about the death of Pete Seeger. Some of my friends knew him well, some knew him, and still more just admired him from afar. I had seen him in concert several times, especially at the Clearwater Festival. I know his music, obviously -- as a child of hippies, I grew up singing it. And I always admired his steady voice against oppression, and his tireless faith in peace and justice.

But more than all that, he was one of those people walking this earth just trying to make it better. And the world weeps every time we lose one of those souls ....

I have friends I haven't seen in many years -- people I may never see again. But my life is better for having known them, and the world is a better place because they are here. I find comfort in knowing that they are still on the planet, even if our paths never cross again. And that's how I felt about Pete Seeger. His music and his clear voice for good warmed me, and the world lost someone special today.

But there is more ... because his death leaves a void. A void which must be filled -- with new voices, just as clear, just as committed, just as determined. It is up to us to shoulder up to one another and take up the guitar, banjo, microphone, camera or pen and speak, sing, write, shout in a clear unequivocating voice about love, and peace, and justice, and freedom.

One of the tributes I read today recalled Pete Seeger leading a march with the Occupy Movement in 2010. It quoted him as saying: "Be wary of great leaders. Hope that there are many, many small leaders."

I understand the sentiment. In 2008, while everyone was jumping on the Obama bandwagon, I feared the effects of disillusionment when one "great leader" failed to live up to our oversized expectations. I worried that young people, like my college students, would drift off into apathy when their zeal did not yield the expected results. I have also been concerned about movements which promised "it gets better," without giving young people the tools to make it better.

Pete Seeger never made that mistake. With a hammer and a bell and a song, Seeger had the tools and the wherewithal to use them, day in and day out, through triumphs and disappointments, for seven decades. And he never took the stage alone or relied solely on his own voice. He made us all sing, so we'd be ready when the time came.

Now it's our turn to take up the tools, to learn to harmonize, stretch our vocal cords, and sing. It's time to shoulder up and become many, many small leaders -- singing with one vision of a world of peace, justice, freedom and love.

"Deep in my heart, I do believe
That we shall live in peace some day."