Who should stock high school pantries?
Are we giving our children enough opportunity?
There is no answer that could ever satisfy a silly question like that – we’ll always be able to find improvements to our environments that help youngsters reach their full human potential.
And in the natural progression of things, it’s dutiful of us all to keep schools under constant scrutiny. Most people agree that ridding them of asbestos and the strap were good things.
In the past decade breakfast programs have become much more popular, in which students can eat a morning meal at school if they don’t have the opportunity to at home.
At Southern Okanagan Secondary School, students in need have the Random Acts of Kindness Pantry, which offers food, toiletries and school supplies. Everybody can agree that it’s a good concept but there isn’t consensus over who should be paying for it.
At Oliver council last week, Southern Okanagan Secondary School vice-principal Tracy Harrington asked the Town to support the pantry with $500. Theoretical support for the project was unanimous among council, but Councillor Larry Schwartzenberger voted against it because he feels the Town shouldn’t be funding educational programming, especially with School District 53 posting a $400,000 surplus this year.
Schwartzenberger said he will support the pantry with money out of his own pocket but he doesn’t think money from one level of government should be transferred to another level.
One knee-jerk reaction is to believe only the Grinch would deny breakfast and school supplies for children in need. But it’s not realistic to think the Town could satisfy every emotional plea made for money. Even though in a town of 5,000 a $500 donation only costs each resident 10 cents, there will never be an end to the need for more dimes. Everybody wants to do their part to help out the less fortunate, but the Ministry of Education already allocates $11.2 million of our tax dollars to be spent on vulnerable students, so how much farther can an extra $500 go?
Although Schwartzenberger was the only councillor to vote against the motion, Mayor Ron Hovanes agreed that the municipality shouldn’t have a habit of giving money to school initiatives but he made an exception given the circumstances.
Five hundred dollars isn’t a very onerous amount for the Town, but Councillor Maureen Doerr asked where council should draw the line.
In every community we’re apart of we should always be working towards more equal opportunities for everyone, and part of that includes giving young people access to food and school supplies. But is the pantry giving students a fish or a pole?
The idea for the pantry came from SOSS’s Tenet of Kindness campaign and it serves an altruistic purpose. The people who are promoting the pantry are only trying to make the world a better place and they don’t deserve any scrutiny for approaching the Town with a funding request.
However, when we invest public dollars into anything, we try to measure the returns. And while some students are sure to benefit from the initiative, it’s curious to wonder how powerful its adverse effects will be. But if kids in the area are going to school malnourished with inadequate supplies, and it becomes endemic – then maybe we should be having a bigger discussion, alongside this one.
Dan Walton, editor, Peachland View
