If you ever have gotten buddy bags in elementary school, you would know that it comes with enough food for the weekend. You can take it home and be supplied with enough to be able to have food. 

Your family can also go to the food bank and get food there.

But besides that, my question is, why don’t you get buddy bags in high school or in middle school?

According to Ms. Lewellen, 8th grade teacher and volunteer, “We do only the elementary. The older kids are embarrassed or get picked on. At least that’s what I have been told. We’ve noticed the younger kids in kindergarten through third grade have no issues taking their bags home. Starting in 4th they tend to ‘forget’ more often.”

Because kids get picked on or bullied, they are more prone to not take the bag of food home. But imagine you’re in this situation: You have no food for the weekend. You get buddy bags but get picked on or bullied because you receive it. Now, you decide to “forget” it because you don’t want to get bullied or picked on. Imagine that.

Now, my next question is, why do you think that they get picked on? Ms. Tice, science teacher at DCSC, responded to that question by saying, “Because they feel like they (other kids) are somehow superior because they don’t have the same need. So it makes them feel better about themselves because they feel like they have a one up. So the problem is stemming from bullying itself.”

So it seems that the main problem is coming from bullying itself. But is there another way that we can get the buddy bags to the students without them being seen?

Mrs. Lang, 8th grade math teacher, has said, “We can have their guardian come and pick them up from the office. Or a trusted person can come and pick it up. That way even if half of our students in need get the food they need, good for them and us. Some kids go hungry over the weekend because of having no food. If delivery could help, I would be willing to take a few.”

So we have some solutions. We could either have their parents come and pick it up from school so they wouldn’t get embarrassed, or we can have some trustworthy people to deliver the food to them at their house.

Mrs. Landis, 7th grade Language Arts teacher, said, “We could maybe deliver them to their lockers during seventh period, and people wouldn’t notice since they would go home.”

Honestly, I think that is a great idea, but it also depends on our resources, and the time it will take to do it.

In the end though, this shows there are ways to be able to do this and help end hunger, or at least reduce it, in Delphi.