Lunch room staff deserving of thanks for meals we have

Our View

Most of us eat meals at school. You know it’s not always restaurant quality. Sometimes you complain about it.

However, the 20 women who serve us our lunches everyday and have served us since kindergarten are hardworking individuals who deal with a lot. As students, there may be some things we don’t agree with that happen to our lunches, like having pre-packaged items on the lunch bars. However, things that occur have concrete reasons that we simply aren’t informed upon. We think many students look upon events as always negative, when having pre-packaged things is obviously cleaner, and can be viewed as positive as well.

In addition, we must recognize how much respect these women deserve. They may serve us our lunches, but they aren’t our servants by any means. They work hard to get each student in the district their lunches and breakfasts each day. Many students don’t say please or thank you, or anything at all when they go through the lunch lines. That sort of thing has no place in the Cedar Falls School District. We should be able to respect the women who serve us our meals with more tact than that.

It’s also important that we don’t stereotype our lunch ladies as the cliche, stuffy, hairnet-wearing employees as has been done in the past. In fact, most of them look completely different when they are outside of work.

Most importantly, we don’t realize how much pressure the nutrition administrators and meal planners are under from USDA regulations, budget restrictions, and the wellness policy of the CF School District. Those are the things that shape our lunches, not necessarily a single person’s decisions or wishes. Life, for lunch ladies especially, would be incredibly simpler if not for the many obstacles in creating meals. We do understand that rules are needed, but it is unfortunate that we have this menagerie of guidelines and regulations. We believe that they restrict our meal providers and the possibilities for lunches too heavily.

In any case, this is where we are. Many things would have to change for any big difference in school lunches to be achieved. Right now, we can understand and appreciate what we have through our faithful lunch ladies.