Della Curry – My New Hero

If you were watching Good Morning America this morning you might know who Della Curry is, that is how I came to learn of the lunch lady from Aurora, Colorado who got fired for giving hungry kids free food. If you missed this segment I want to tell you why she is my hero.

Della Curry is a 35-year-old woman who was the kitchen manager of an elementary school. Lunch ladies are the unsung hero’s of America and they rarely get the respect they deserve for cooking and serving food to hundreds of kids every school day, hell anyone who just spends time in a school cafeteria deserves a special place in heaven.

At Della’s school kids had accounts for their lunches where their parents were supposed to put money in advance of them buying lunch. Della described the lunch as a hot main entrée, two vegetables a fruit and milk. Children came through the line and were given their food and then went to pay, either deducting the cost from their account or with cash they had with them. If a child’s account got overdrawn by $7.60, which was the cost of three meals, the policy was that the lunch ladies manning the cash register were supposed to take that child’s tray of food away from them, except the milk, and replace it with a cheese sandwich made up of one slice of American cheese on a hamburger bun. Here is the crazy part, by law they had to throw away the meal they took from the child for health reasons.

Della was fired for not throwing away perfectly good food, but instead letting the child eat it. She admitted she was breaking the rules, but in good conscious she would do it again that way. She said that there were plenty of kids at her school who got free or reduced price lunches, but some kids who did not qualify still had a hard time paying. To qualify for reduced price lunch a family of four has to earn less than about $44,000 a year and to get free lunch a family of four had to earn less than $31,000.

She is my hero because she was looking out for small children, who through no fault of their own, did not have the means to pay for food and did not deserved to be shamed in the lunch line and denied the same nutrition as the other children. Yes, not all cafeteria food is delicious, but if you are hungry it tastes pretty good.

I believe that the children who have a hard time paying are exactly who we should give food to, because they probably don’t have the best food at home. Not having a good lunch makes learning in the afternoon difficult, so this policy of giving a child a cheese sandwich and cup of milk is putting them at a disadvantage in the classroom and that could have cumulative and lifelong effects. A well-fed child has a much better chance at growing up to be productive and self sufficient than a child who has been shamed and denied.

Imagine your own child was switched at birth and mistakenly went home with a family of minor means, wouldn’t you want your child to have Della Curry as his or her lunch lady?