OH school fires lunch lady for buying meals for students who couldn’t pay – IOTW Report

OH school fires lunch lady for buying meals for students who couldn’t pay

Not only that, they made her cry, too.
I’m conflicted because I want to both smack her and hug her for doing what she did.

EAG: WILMINGTON, Ohio – An Ohio middle school canned a lunch lady after she gave away food to students who couldn’t afford it, including her grandkids, and later paid for the meals out of her own paycheck.
Denver Place Elementary School lunch lady Debbie Solsman told WXIX students often came through the lunch line without enough money in their accounts, and she would either buy them lunch out of her own pocket or write out an IOU and stash it in the cashier’s drawer.

She said she would later pay off the IOUs when she received her paycheck.

“I sometimes would buy (hungry students) an extra slice of pizza because I did feel them out, ask them what they had for supper the night before,” Solsman said. “Sometimes they would tell me nothing.”  read more

 

56 Comments on OH school fires lunch lady for buying meals for students who couldn’t pay

  1. sadly, this is what happens when government gets in the business of deciding who eats free …. the story clearly states kids that didn’t have the money got cheese sandwiches … free!
    I’ve eaten many a cheese sandwich in my time, both as a kid & an adult … that’s what you eat when you can’t afford better … work harder … deal with it, fss
    a mother in the story: “I’ve got her calling me … like it’s cheese sandwich time,” mother Danielle Davis said. “A kid can’t get through the day on a cheese sandwich.” …. sonofabitch lady! quit complaining! your kids are being fed by money from other people! where is your shame? jeezuz! get a job & feed your kids! we didn’t have ’em … you did!

  2. I’m wondering how many people here have actually had a school lunch. I have never had a school lunch. Ever. Brown bagged it every day. In high school during wrestling season I had a grocery bag of food in my locker at all times. Maybe a west coast thing.

  3. @BBrad ~ never had a school lunch until high school … always brown-bagged it before that … paid for my own lunches w/ my own $ …. that’s what we did ‘back in the day’
    there was no such thing as a ‘free lunch’ … everyone either brought lunch or paid for it … what is wrong w/ people today that think they’re entitled to have someone else pay for their daily bread?

  4. ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

    What you said and I might add I think the majority of parents these days are to damn lazy to make their kids a lunch. And why should they, the state will feed them. Just no meat.

  5. I ate school lunches throughout my school days. It was %1.25 a week the earliest I remember (paid the teacher on Monday mornings) and eventually went up to $2.00 toward the end of elementary school (75 cents per meal in high school). An extra carton of milk cost a nickel, so my dad usually gave us an extra quarter a week for that.

    But the lunches were generally good and had decent portions. The lunch ladies were a bunch of older ladies that knew how to cook good, southern food. I still remember how good the homemade yeast rolls and peanut butter cookies were (I’d usually trade somebody a vegetable I didn’t want for an extra yeast roll).

    There were very few free lunches given out then. But I still remember a couple of kids in high school that there parents were on welfare and they got free lunch – they would pull out a roll of cash (sometimes with a $100 bill) and buy an extra carton of milk with it just to rub it in the paying kids faces. But being on the free lunch list back then was properly considered to be a shameful thing in most cases.

  6. Bubba’s Brother,
    Interesting, what part of the county? My high school in Northern California had a manned snack bar, but most everyone brought their own lunches. They sold Pizza everyday. But for the most part it was potato chips and cookies.

  7. wtf is wrong w/ this country when it’s considered more noble to get free food from a government that takes from others to feed your kids?

    phuck free cheese sandwiches … we need an ‘extra slice’
    … there’s more to this story than written

  8. Small town NE Georgia. Back then, the elementary schools were in neighborhoods. Our small town had about 7,500 people and we had 6 elementary schools (grades 1-7 had about 150 students total). Most kids could walk (or ride their bike) to school from home (usually within 3 or four blocks) and parents really didn’t have to worry about anything happening other than the occasional “scuffle” that might happen in a group of kids. It really was pretty idyllic – not far removed from “Leave it to Beaver”.

    In high school (one school for the county – about 1,200 students in grades 9-12), we usually had 2 or 3 choices on the lunch menu (we got to fill out a menu “request” for the week so the kitchen folks would be able to gauge how much of which things to prepare). It was very well organized and really seemed to work pretty well.

    Part of why it worked well may have been that it was always a relatively small population of kids to feed compared to a lot of schools today (or in larger cities) – and the kids were generally better behaved back then because most of us knew that if we got in trouble at school, we were getting an ass whuppin’ when we got home.

  9. My God, what kind of a slobbering fucktard piece of shit is running that school anyway? If she’s buying the meals with her own money, then how is that anyone’s goddamn motherfucking bee’s wax?

  10. Yep, I knew what government cheese was, food
    stamp booklets, and subsidized school lunches. This
    lady would have been an angel to me forty years ago.
    Hammer the school.

  11. School lunches were good and inexpensive in the 60s and at least until `75. From .27 to $1 in 12 years.

    With real butter pats .02 and fresh dinner rolls .03 Real milk .05 – all you could buy and eat. No limit on anything.

    Nothing I could bring from home could possibly be as fresh, warm and taste as good. I tried. No point to it. Even the boys wouldn’t bring anything to school in the 80s.

    The only squash I ever thought tasted good. I never did understand that one. Not even Mom served squash that good. Never told her that.

  12. 1,200 is a big school, Bubba. Even if it was all the county could muster.

    My Dallas High school was like that. Moved to Lake Geneva Wi and the SR class was 55. Way different energy.

  13. ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ & “author of this story.
    First of all, anyone reacting to a human being who is helping others, by considering to slap them is truly disturbed. Grow up. Just hug them.
    As for you… ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ you cowardly, sniveling, self righteous vermin….
    How dare you judge others that are in need. Tens of millions of hard working Americans are suffering for no other reason than they cannot earn enough money to support themselves. Jobs don’t pay enough. Little men like you cry about those that are trying to raise the minimum wage to $15. You are just an angry, scared xenophobic.
    Costs are never ending. Rents, expenses. Then you, probably an uneducated right wing person comes along with his multiple comments attacking fellow Americans, assuming they are lazy, ignorant free loaders, because they take a lunch. But I don’t hear you crying about cowards like trump stealing hundreds of millions in unpaid taxes and unfair tax breaks. No, you just attack those that you see fit to attack. But the reality is, there are more uneducated and poor white Americans who voted for trump, voted blindly against their own families, just to satiate their racist expressions. You buddy are heartless, ignorant and may one day end up jobless and homeless. You better pray when that day comes, that the world is not like you!

  14. I think the county high school now is only about 800 students Dad. Back when I was there, we were “class AAA” in sports and the only higher class was AAAA. Now the largest schools in GA are “7A” (between 2,000 and 4,000 students). The Atlanta suburbs are where almost all of those are. 55 students sounds like the classes my parents had – they knew everyone and remained friends or at least friendly with all of them throughout their lives. Our town is about 110 miles from downtown Atlanta.

    The small towns in NE GA and lots of SC are slowly dying away. Textiles were still big in the 60’s and 70’s, and when that industry went overseas there was nothing to replace the jobs. My dad’s town’s population is now about 4,000 (about half of when I was growing up in the 60’s and 70’s). It’s a sad thing to behold as I watch the people I knew growing up slowly die off. There just isn’t anything to keep younger people here if they are able to further their education (college or a decent “trade school” degree). Once my dad is gone, I’ll have no reason to stay either (I’ve tried to find work here on at least a part-time basis, but I’m supposedly overqualified for everything even if I’m willing to work for whatever the job pays). I’ve kept my house in the suburbs of Atlanta knowing that at some point I’ll have to be in a larger population center to make some kind of a living.

    There are dozens of decent houses (and some really nice ones) in this town that are sitting empty now and the prices range from about $70k and up with no takers in sight. I’ve encouraged the city development people to market the town as a retirement community with low cost of home ownership and low cost of living, but they don’t seem to be interested in marketing the small town that it is (which I think could be an advantage).

    But that’s why the school lunches were so good LOL (and we didn’t have to pay extra for pats of butter unless we went crazy with them).

  15. 7A? 2,000 to 4,000? Wow.

    We were demoted to 4A by the time I got there. I went and looked and I was wrong to a large degree, The SR class before I got there was around 1,200 and my class was about 800. We only carried 3 grades at the time because of the size of the classes and limited rooms. So – very wrong on the total school count. No wonder it seemed crowded. It was. lol

    Yeah, 55 was like a vacation. Everyone knew each other. We could sign ourselves out to go skiing or whatever if the teachers gave the ok. Straight As paid off in that regard.

    Only negative about finishing school there was going 11 years with everyone in D and being at a different graduation. Don’t regret it at all though.

  16. When compassionate, decent people like this lady lose their jobs over breaking (or maybe just bending) the rules, then maybe it’s time to take another look at the rules.

    Just sayin’.

  17. ha. Didn’t get the Larry reference until I saw the bigoted part of Julie’s rant. I could see why she was offended in first part, then I went back and finished it. Whew. So full of crap that part was. But the left has to believe the worst imaginable and demonize the right to feel good about themselves. Typical. A spot-on Larry.

  18. I live fairly close to Wilmington. When a lot of their shipping/factory work closed down, almost the whole city was laid off… No work to be found unless you commute for an hour, ect. I’m not surprised that a lot of those kids don’t have food.

    So instead of buying an industrial sized bucket of peanut butter and just feeding them, fire the lunch lady who is paying for it herself, like she’s a damn millionaire.

    Thanks, government.

  19. We always went home for lunch. Grilled cheese sandwiches were often on the menu. I loved them. Still do.
    Considering how much money is pissed away by the public school system, it is unbelievable that a random act of kindness got this lady fired. I suspect this sort of thing happens in lunch lines all around the country.
    #No Justice, No Pizza.

  20. Rez schools, like the one I attended in the 70s, and much more so when my son attended, would bust their asses to give out free lunches and were pissy about those of us who didn’t qualify. The more free lunches they gave out the more grant money they got.

  21. the only problem is the iou’s in the register. never good when that happens. other than that, she can pay for anybody’s food she wants to and if anyone doesn’t like it, tough sht

  22. I wonder if any of those kids she helped spoke on her behalf?

    When I was in grade school we had some pretty awful industrial sized stuff slopped on our plates. One dish we called “cream of up-chucked corn” and then there were the instant sweet potatoes that were about the same, only orange. My siblings were reminiscing recently about those school lunches and remembered how gross the canned plums were, now that I think about they do sort of remind me purple testicles.

  23. All the kids ate school lunch @ my h.s. in upper Miss River valley. No free lunches, no food stamps, no immigrants. Our idea of misbehavior and mischief was launching a slab of jello over toward the table reserved for the teachers. I wish someone had taped the conversations in the teachers’ “lounge”, which was an open space in the boiler/utility room that always had several ash trays filled to the brim. Maybe you had to be there…..

  24. Oh, the school lunch food was OK by me, a few dumb asses would complain incessantly about it but they all ate it. The cooks knew what they were doing and they seemed to enjoy working there. They got out of the house, out of the old man’s hair, made a few bucks, did something productive, follow the local gossip (who was sleeping with whom), and the school is the most active energetic place in town. I suppose the seating arrangements were kind of cliquey, when you were in 8th grade you knew better than to sit down or even look the wrong way at the senior boys’ reserved spot.

  25. Julie Hartigan,

    First of all, with all due disrespect, go fuck yourself. I didn’t “author” this story and only the comment about slapping or hugging the lunch lady was mine. Did you miss the HUG part, drama queen?

    2nd, you’re a bleeding heart liberal, so I would expect you to want to give handouts to anyone and everyone, regardless of the fact the welfare class most times ends up eating better than most working people nowadays.

    3rd, the reason I said slap was because I know some of those kids were trolling her, lying about “I didn’t have dinner last night”. Come on, every single time? For an extra pizza? Come on. And then a parent calling and acting like the lunch lady was responsible for her kids’ meals? Are you kidding me? I’m “Disturbed”? YOU are the reason poverty exists. YOU are the type that promotes lazy, uneducated people on welfare. The illegals on welfare who come straight over the border and get cash thrown at them. You’re pretty generous with OTHER people’s money.
    where were you when your lesser gods Mich and Barry 0bama were starving these kids with that 0bamalunch program? Hmm?

    4th, I said “Hug” because she does have a good heart and she’s a soft touch. And the fact that she doesn’t understand that some of those kids are scamming her (while others may truly need her help) only means she is shoveling shit uphill. Should she have been fired? No. A warning would have been plenty. Then if she wished to continue it, that’s her choice. She’ll be fired. But she could just as easily hand the specific kids out some cash on Monday and see if they spend it the way she intended them to during the week. Otherwise, a cheese sandwich is better than eating air and drinking water, isn’t it?

    In conclusion, Jules, I’m thinking you and your lib friends should grow the hell up. You can’t be a grown damn woman still tugging on your mama’s apron (in this case, the taxpayer’s apron) asking for things when you have no clue of the consequences of what it takes to get them.

    Edit: Oh and I wrote, “Smack”, not slap.

  26. This lunch lady exemplifies what our country used to be like. People like this were everywhere. Today? Not so much. Today, we must teach the children that only the government is compassionate. Thus they had to fire her. She was a reminder of what made this country great.

  27. Exactly. She’s a nice lady. But when a parent calls up the school or calls her whining about having to eat a cheese sandwich, why is it the lady’s responsibility to upgrade the kid’s menu everyday?
    The second she tells one kid that she’s out of money (The IOU she left was cause for firing because product was not paid for) she’ll be the asshole and possibly a raycis because she gave X person food, and the other kid didn’t get anything. Notice, sometimes when you’re charitable, it gets you into more trouble than if you were criminal? lol

  28. Maybe I’m biased because MJA writes here, but her take on this story is right on the money (pun intended.)

    And Julie, your positions are a riot.
    You play the role of a moron lib to a tee.

    Well done. I hope you stick around and entertain us more.

  29. Wow, “Julie”, how do you suppose it was different when anyone of us was growing up? Most of us are of the attitude that, when one gets hungry, one gets ambitious.

  30. @Julie Hartigan ~ thanks for the entertainment. your post is a keeper! Bless your heart.
    it is obvious you didn’t bother reading the story & the points I brought out. you didn’t even bother to answer my statements …. typically, you just exploded & started ranting without thought, or cognitive, reasonable argument.
    … when feelings overpower reason there’s nothing else to do; it’s all you have …. sad

  31. MO…..
    You poor little man with grammatical issues, anger issues and most definitely, issues with misogyny.
    If my passion to protect hungry children frightens you, I can only imagine your life must be an isolated and terrifying journey of hate and judgement. Your confusion at my response to your hate filled, ignorant and sustained…….”3 times!……statement….. your sickening, blathering and crying about a strong woman feeding children…..
    Buddy, you are nothing more than a coward looking to pick fights with women.
    When a HUMAN sees suffering, they respond.
    You are confusing passion and lack of reason which is indicative that you must be alone, angry and unable not only to reason, but to feel any emotion. You would never speak this nonsense to a group of us parents.

  32. Moronic Abe,
    Cry yourself a river about your lack of empathy for fellow Americans.
    Your soggy cranium.
    That belly which prevents you from seeing your tiny spigot.
    Your overt and misguided anger towards hungry children and those courageous enough to feed them.
    Take a hike O’ big babied, diapered one.

  33. MJA ……
    You are the only victim here.
    Well, you and Abe…
    Actually stupid enough to make fun of hungry children.
    People like you hide in the shadows.
    You never articulate such hate speech in public.
    I can imagine you two fat white guys being chased by a mob of parents!
    Your big, white bellies jiggling like jello, hanging out of your Klan t-shirts.
    “Get to the Jeep Earnest.”
    “I can’t. I’m too fat and slow Gerry.”
    You guys are pathetic losers, but you knew that!
    I bet your ex wives know that too!
    See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya!

  34. oh man, this is fun!
    …. let’s see ……. ok
    these people never made it past middle school attention-starved student council …. now we got Little Melatoninally-Challenged Leroy … does trying to shout at people & call names actually still work w/ your crowd?

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