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| 8 year old Cayden Taipalus |
Courtesy of IAcknowledge:
8-Year-Old Raises Thousands of Dollars to Pay Off Past Due Lunch Accounts of Classmates Jameson March 6, 2014 Class Warfare Exists Let it never be said that even young children can’t see injustice in the world, nor are they powerless to do anything about it.
When 8-year-old Cayden Taipalus saw that some of this fellow classmates at school were forced to forgo hot meals because their lunch account balances had dipped into the negative, he came home upset. His school’s policy was to allow students to go $5 into the negative before replacing their regular hot meals with cheese sandwiches and milk, according to Tom Gould, director of public relations for the Howell Public School District where Cayden attends.
“Like a lot of districts, we use accounts where parents add money to their students’ accounts,” Gould said, explaining that parents are notified when their child has a negative balance.
But it’s a problem that faces many students, with some children’s parents unable to afford to ever get them out of the negative. When he got home from school that day, he told his mother that he felt like it was unfair that some kids weren’t being served hot meals and instead had to eat cheese sandwiches because their lunch accounts had no money in them.
“I just want to make kids have a better lunch,” he told TODAY.com.
So he decided to do something about it. First, he and his mom began to collect empty bottles and cans and exchanging them as part of a recycling program. That got him about $64, and bought about 150 lunches. Pretty impressive for an 8-year-old, but Cayden was just warming up.
After he got a little local press for his act of kindness, people began contacting his family asking what they could do to help. Seeing an opportunity to make a bid difference, he started a campaign on an online fundraising site that got money to put towards his schools lunch program. The dollars began pouring in.
Hundreds of people from across the United States and abroad have donated, pitching in a staggering $10,800 to the cause so far. That’s enough money to pay for well over 4,000 school lunches. Cheese sandwiches will be a distant memory. Cayden probably just got a lot more friends around the school yard.
Whenever I hear anybody say they worry about the future of this country, I always tell them not to.
If this represents the generations to follow ours then I think we are in good hands indeed,
I wish I could express the same confidence in the grownups who think that denying children a hot meal because their parents are a few dollars light in their accounts is teaching these children a valuable lesson.
Well at least they taught one 8 year old boy a lesson he will never forget.
A future Democrat! Just like that amazing young girl who spoke out for justice, and so many others. Good for you, Cayden!!
ReplyDeleteFlood Paul Ryan's (R-Wisconsin) mailbox with this. This child and his mother worked harder in a few weeks than Ryan has in all the years in office. He thinks kids go hungry because their parents don't care!! This, after HE and his family used SS benefits to go to college. "I got mine, you can go pound sand" response typical of the gop.
ReplyDeleteI tweeted to him FWIW, LOL I bet that kids parents AREN'T at CCRAP either...
Deletethe kid was raised right. Not the "I got mine" attitude that goes to CPAC.
After reading this, Sarah said,
ReplyDelete"this is what is wrong in the United States. These eight year old kids need to pull themselves up by their shoe laces and learn hard work like my children did. These kids need to be working in coal mines, textile mills or be a janitor at the school. Eight year old kids wanting a free hot lunch is proof Obama is destroying our freedoms."
Kudos to this 8-yr old Community Organizer, Cayden Taipalus. Cayden is already a leader within his generation, and he's just getting started. Way to go, Cayden!
ReplyDeleteWhat a great kid. And he learned it at home.
ReplyDeleteI think our future is secure if we raise our children to have compassion for those less fortunate. These parents are doing that!
ReplyDeleteLove this! Cayden, thank you!!!!! We need more leaders like you. So grateful for your compassion, vision, and determination. Can't wait to see what you'll do next. Congratulations to some awesome parents, too.
ReplyDeleteAmen!
ReplyDeleteBig Survey Confirms: Millenials Are Liberal
ReplyDeleteMillennials Are More Likely To Be Democratic, Single And Churchless: Pew Research
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"It's not that they don't have strong political opinions, they do," Taylor said. "It's simply that they choose not to identify themselves with either political party."
The number of self-described independents is lower among their predecessors. Only 39 percent of those in Generation X said they were independents, along with 37 percent of the boomers and 32 percent of the Silent Generation.
Pew describes Gen Xers as those from age 34-49, boomers as 50-68 and the Silent Generation as those 69-86.
When the self-identified Democratic millennials combined with the self-described independents who lean Democratic, half — 50 percent — of the millennials are Democrats or Democratic-leaning while 34 percent are Republicans or Republican-leaning.
"They don't choose to identify, but they have strong views and their views are views that most people conventionally associate with the Democratic Party," Taylor said. "They believe in a big activist government on some of the social issues of the day — gay marriage, marijuana legalization, immigration. Their views are much more aligned with the Democratic Party."
Taylor said they don't know whether millennial voting trends will stay the same as they get older.
"People can change over the course of their lifetimes," Taylor said. "At the same time, the behaviors, attitudes, the voting patterns and experiences that generations sort of encounter as they come of age in their late teens and early 20s are important and this generation as political actors has come in three or four national elections in a row now as distinctively Democratic and liberal despite the fact they don't want to identify that way."
Millennials also haven't bought into the idea that they should go to church or get married early.
Only 36 percent of the millennials said the phrase "a religious person" described them very well, compared with 52 percent of the Gen Xers, 55 percent of the baby boomers and 61 percent of the Silent Generation. And they're significantly less religious than their immediately predecessors, the Gen Xers. When they were the same age, almost half of the Gen Xers — 47 percent — identified themselves as religious.
The 64 percent of the millennials who say that they are not religious "is the highest for any age group we've ever measured," Taylor said.
The millenials were far less inclined toward marriage than the groups that preceded them. Only 26 percent of the millennial adults are married. When they were the same age, 36 percent of the Gen Xers, 48 percent of baby boomers and 65 percent of the Silent Generation were married.
The Pew study was based on interviews with 1,821 adults by cellphone or landline from Feb. 14-23. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.6 percentage points.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/07/millennials-democratic-single-pew-research_n_4918448.html
What a great kid....8 years old and he has more compassion than the entire Republican party of millionaires!! I agree this should be sent to Paul Ryan a zillion times esp after his last speech about the brown paper bag lunch. Wonder how his kids think about the poor? That generation is color blind to race and to same sex marriage...hope is growing up.
ReplyDeleteWell, I know one little boy who has made Paul Ryan's shit list.
ReplyDeleteWe don't have school cafeterias in Australia so it's easy to slip a kid a sandwich and a piece of fruit without any fuss. Free milk is something that all kids get depending on whether or not there is a RW government there to take milk away from growing children so they can fund their subsidised four-course dinners.
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame that idiots, killers, gypsies, tramps and thieves hog up all the news and reality show circuits when there's eight year old boys with more compassion, love for their fellow man, and a feeling that we're all in this together, whose stories go by the wayside.
ReplyDeleteWhat does he expect in return for his generosity? Not a damn thing but the ability to help MORE kids.
This child was raised right. Kudos to him, his family, friends, extended family and those he helped. One act of kindness can change a life.
HOW THE FUCK DO YOU NOT HAVE A LINK FOR ME TO DONATE!?!?
ReplyDelete