Ponderings During A Hysterical, Historical Weekend
Posted by Cate Puzo on Friday, February 12, 2010
After four delayed and rebooked flights, I finally escaped Washington D.C.’s self-proclaimed “snowmageddon”. It was a true blizzard, even by my high standards (I’ve lived in the Midwest and Northeast’s snow belt half my life), and had D.C. in a state of mild hysteria. While the storm hadn’t yet broken the record for dropping the most snow on the Capitol at once, I have no doubt that February 2010 will go down in history is one of the snowiest months D.C. has ever seen.
While most kids I know are downright giddy over snow days, I found myself thinking of the kids for whom a day without school means a day without breakfast, lunch or perhaps any meal at all. And this blizzard hit Washington on a Friday, a day when many schoolchildren go home with a backpack full of food to get them through the weekend.
How many of these children lived in families that weren’t worried about losing their power, because they had none to lose? How many were not only cold, but cold and hungry? How many were praying for the snow to stop and the snowplows and school buses to come?
I took these thoughts to an impromptu dinner party on Super Bowl night. All the guests were connected to the federal government in some way, most by direct employment. During a pause in the conversation, I shared my day’s ponderings. Suddenly I was hearing support for all child nutrition programs. One guest proclaimed that every kid who qualifies for free or reduced-price school lunch should also get breakfast to start the day and a light meal at its end to help keep their bodies and mind growing. Not that that would have kept D.C.’s at-risk children from facing a real “snowmageddon” as the mounding snow continued to keep them from school. But it was a position I hadn’t heard before, and it got strong support among the rest of the guests.
I returned home just in time to see the New Orleans Saints win their first Super Bowl. What had started out as a somewhat hysterical weekend in our nation’s capitol was ending with something firmly historical. The unthinkable had happened. Passion, perseverance, trust and a lot of good, hard work by a lot of good people had prevailed and the beleaguered city of New Orleans was celebrating the win as a victory for their own tenacity and strength.
The celebration gave me hope that, with all of us working together in the same spirited way, we can make something just as historical happen: We can make sure that no child in America goes hungry.
February 12, 2010 | 1 comment(s) | Tags: childhood hunger, school lunch, snowmageddon, washington dc
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1 reader comment so far.
Cate,
I enjoyed reading this. My sister works in DC and lives in Alexandria, and we had a similar discussion about those families who were being hit the hardest by the snowstorms.
Posted by Jennifer Fitch on February 23, 2010
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