by Patricia Gilliam

Created on: November 04, 2008

Reflections of a Free Lunch Kid-The Beginnings of How I Got Out of Poverty

In elementary school, there were some of us who had these little orange punch cards we handed the lunch lady every day instead of the $1.25 that the other kids did. I remember I thought it was weird even in 1st grade that the little orange circles that were punched out of the ticket apparently had the same value as actual money.

This later led to me finding a hole puncher at home (I had to stand on a chair and reach to get it) and some orange construction paper. I punched as many little orange circles as I could.

The following Monday I got in line for lunch, my little jean pockets stuffed with orange construction paper confetti. The lunch lady almost fell out her seat laughing when I asked how much change I could have and gave her a handful of the circles, and the line got backed up for a moment.

After lunch and just before we were going outside for recess, my teacher Mrs. Edwards asked me to come up to her desk for a moment so we could talk. She smiled and asked me to empty the rest of the construction paper in my pockets into her trash can.

"That was very creative of you."

"Am I in trouble?"

"No. I just wanted to tell you to keep using that brain of yours, and you will make money when you get older. This just wasn't the right idea. That's all."

She then told us all to go outside. Her words lingered with me for the rest of the day and have always seemed to pop up in my mind later in life whenever I needed to hear them.

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It was in third grade when I found out more information about the lunch tickets.

"You do know what that is, right?" a boy in front of me asked.

"Of course I do, silly-it's a lunch ticket," I replied.

"It means your family is poor-I used to have one, but then my dad got a better job. Now I don't have one anymore."

He didn't say it in a mean way but as an observation. I watched him give the lunch lady his $1.25, and I kept my eyes fixed on him as I gave the lunch lady my ticket.

He just strugged his shoulders and said, "Maybe one day your dad will get a better job, too."

It was at that point a whole new way of looking at the world was revealed to me-not just the negative side of where my family apparently was financially, but that things could change for the better and didn't have to stay the same.

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"How much do you want for that butterfly keychain?"

"What?" I asked and stopped walking down the hallway. I turned around and saw a girl named Amber that sat next to me in home room.

"I've already spent $2 in quarters trying to get one of those out of the machine at Wal-Mart. Would $1 be all right? Please? That's all the extra I have on me."

"Sure."

I had only spent a quarter for it, so it was a great deal for me. She handed me 4 quarters, which I spent for 4 more toys out of the same machine. I had another idea.

Within 3 months, I was making $10+ a day selling 25 cent toys for $1 to other kids at my school. I had my own little Barbie briefcase and everything. I used part of the money for more toys, part of it on books I wanted from Scholastic (we'd have fliers given to us about once a month with stuff we could buy), and I saved the rest for things like field trips.

There was also one more thing that I did, and I don't think I even fully understood the significance of it at the time. I started giving my lunch tickets away (they weren't labeled with your name back then) to some other kids so they could keep their money.

Then I started paying for my own lunch.

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