By Kelsey Kober
Staff Writer
It’s fifth period, in the midst of a hectic week. You trudge into the cafeteria, ravenous and fatigued by the pressures of the school day. You groan when you realize you forgot to ask your parents to put money on your lunch card. Frantically, you dig through your bag, but can only come up with two dollars and fifty cents. What can $2.50 buy you in the BHS cafeteria? A stale muffin, possibly? Maybe a pretzel, if you choose to skip the drink. Whatever you can come up with, it will by no means be substantial enough to satisfy the nutritional needs of a teenager.
“My mom doesn’t pack me a lunch and only gives me fifty dollars a month, which is barely two dollars a day. So I eat nothing!” Claims one student, who has a busy schedule on the swim team that demands decent nourishment.
“The prices are outrageous!” Complains sophomore Neha Anad. Is it not enough that the food is of a less than appetizing quality? That the selection is gradually deteriorating? Apparently not, because they feel the need to overcharge us for food that is normally cheaply manufactured. Seriously, one dollar for a pack of gum? Three dollars for a pack of Bosco Sticks, when it’s common knowledge that two sticks aren’t enough to satisfy your appetite? They’ve even gone so far as to charge $1.25 for a two-serving bottle of water, while the average cost of water in the U.S. is less than one penny a gallon. It seems like they’re on a mission to exploit us and grab our money.
But who’s “they,” exactly? It’s not the school, who has no control of how much our caterer, Sodexo, charges. Students not only at BHS, but also at various schools and universities supplied to by Sodexo are complaining about this increase. But Sodexo claims they have no say in the prices. According to the Whitworthington, one of their managers says that the price of food has shot up 10% and they’ve been trying to keep it under control. It’s all a vicious blame-game. Unfortunately, there’s not one sole person or group we can direct our rage at.
Now, one question remains: What are we, as students, going to do about this? Sitting back and complaining will do absolutely nothing. Let’s face it, we are essentially powerless; they know that we’ll keep buying their food no matter how horrendous their prices get. Or will we? Students at a Florida high school were also fed up with their cafeteria’s outrageous prices and assembled a fairly successful school-wide boycott. Although it won’t be easy to get all 3.000 students behind it, this is definitely an option. We need to show these people that we aren’t going to accept being taken advantage of!
