Kids' Needs First!

For the first few weeks of school each year, I work on morning bus duty. This can be quite an adventure since our school has 1000 children all in kindergarten, first, or second grade! Also,we typically have lots of anxious parents in attendance at the very beginning of the year. Well, one day last week, my gaze fell upon a little boy with his hand in the air, a child I believed to be new to our school. I walked over to see what he needed and noticed that his eyes were red-rimmed, as if he were about to cry. He said, "My mama said I was supposed to eat breakfast." I said, "Okay! Do you have money, or did your mom buy you a ticket?" The child, whom I didn't recognize from the year before, looked solemn and shook his head no. I said, "Hang on, I'll go check." The lady at the cash register immediately said, "Oh he can eat."  I asked if she could look his  name up to see whether he had an account or not, and she said, "Yes, I can look it up, but we never turn anybody away."          As it turned out, the child's mother had indeed paid for his meals, so I was able to go give him the good news. As I was walking to his table, I smiled and nodded at him, and he leaped from his seat with a grin and went to help himself. Although our school is in an affluent area of town, it did my heart good to know that our cafeteria staff is so welcoming of all children who are hungry, and that they won't turn anyone down for breakfast, even if they don't have the means to pay.