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Hungry Kids Make Poor Learners
‘Babes of Wrath’ to Visit Cherry Hill, NJ to Advocate for School Lunch ‘Scoflaws’
Tuna-Gate, the Cherry Hill, New Jersey effort to shame poor families into eking out lunch money or get served a tuna sandwich, has caught the attention of “Babes of Wrath,” a pair of national activists concerned about impoverished families. The Babes will spend 2 days in Cherry Hill, Sept. 5–6, creatively calling attention to the Cherry Hill school district’s problem collecting lunch money.
In what seems to be a national epidemic, districts are putting the squeeze on families to force payment for school lunches. Babes of Wrath, with decades of work with impoverished and homeless families, assert that school districts may be “lashing out at when they should be looking out for families, with housing and without, who cannot afford lunches,” maintains Diane Nilan, president of HEAR US Inc., a national advocacy organization.
Nilan, who filmed and produced a short documentary on families and youth experiencing homelessness across NJ, is one of the individuals responsible for creating and pushing for the McKinney-Vento Homeless Education Act that, among other things, guarantees that homeless students…
