This article was originally published by Matt Agorist at Activist Post.
*EDITOR’S NOTE: Read this article first for more background: School’s Warning: “Your Child May Be Taken From Your Home” Over Unpaid Lunch Debt
Luzerne County, PA — As TFTP [The Free Thought Project] reported this week, Wyoming Valley West School District parents, whose school lunch accounts were delinquent, received a disturbing letter threatening to have their children kidnapped by Child and Youth Services if they don’t pay their past due balances. The letter garnered national attention and drew the ire of many, including a millionaire CEO who offered to pay these past due balances. In an infuriating move, however, the school board rejected his offer and is opting for stealing the kids instead.
Todd Carmichael, chief executive and co-founder of Philadelphia-based La Colombe Coffee, made an offer this week to pay off the more than $22,000 in unpaid lunch bills to help the parents who so desperately need it. However, school board president Joseph Mazur rejected the offer on Tuesday, arguing that the money is owed by parents who can afford to pay it.
But this does not matter to Carmichael, who simply wants to wipe away the debt.
“The position of Mr. Carmichael is, irrespective of affluence, irrespective of need, he just wants to wipe away this debt,” Carmichael spokesman Aren Platt said Tuesday.
Carmichael — who is widely recognized for being the first American to cross Antarctica to the South Pole, on foot, alone — made this offer because he says, as a child, he was helped by receiving free lunches. He explained his intent in a letter sent to papers in the Wilkes-Barre area on Monday.
“I know what it means to be hungry,” Carmichael wrote. “I know what it means to feel shame for not being able to afford food.”
Carmichael told reporters on Tuesday that he remains steadfast despite the school board rejecting his offer, and noted that it still stands.
“I’m just going to hold on and I’m going to continue to be optimistic and see if we can’t do something,” Carmichael said. “Even if you’re a difficult person, we’re in. What can we do?”
Carmichael explained how he was struggling to understand why anyone would turn down this offer to help, as it seems like a no-brainer.
“Why prevent it?” he said.
Wyoming Valley West’s solicitor, Charles Coslett, said he did not know what the school board planned to do, according to a report in the Associated Press.
“I don’t know what my client’s intention is at this point,” Coslett said. “That’s the end of the line.”
As TFTP reported on Monday, the letter sent to over 1,000 parents — threatening to take their children — reads in part:
You can be sent to dependency court for neglecting your child’s right to food. The result may be your child being taken from your home and placed in foster care
The letter which one parent equated to school-sponsored bullying drew immediate outrage from the community as well as Luzerne County officials who immediately demanded the school retract its letter and explicit threat to steal kids away from their parents. Luzerne County Children and Youth Services executive director Joanne Van Saun said:
I found it very disturbing. Upsetting. It’s a total misrepresentation, a gross misrepresentation of what our agency does.
The school board’s disturbing position was countered by county officials who claimed the school system is simply lying about the power the schools have to steal kids. The county manager and the child welfare agency director penned their own letter sent to the school superintendent telling the school system to stop lying to parents. According to PennLive:
Luzerne County’s manager and child welfare agency director have written the superintendent, insisting the district stop making what they call false claims. Their letter calls the district’s actions troubling and a misrepresentation of how the Children and Youth Services Department and its foster care program operate.
It is worth noting that poor parents qualify for free lunches. Parents who have low incomes can qualify for reduced lunch fees. And working parents who qualify for neither of the federally-funded programs pay the full price for school food.
So, it’s safe to say the letters were sent to working families too well-off to afford free lunches and too poor to keep their children’s accounts paid up.
While it is certainly unacceptable for parents — who can afford it — to choose not to pay for their child’s lunch, oftentimes those right at the free lunch cutoff often struggle to make it work. Sadly, however, instead of attempting to work out a solution, the school board is moving in to take kids and place liens on property.
The Wyoming Valley West School District’s federal programs director, Joseph Muth, wrote a letter saying he had considered using food shaming tactics such as forcing the poor children to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
The district’s federal programs director, Joseph Muth, told WNEP-TV the district had considered serving peanut butter and jelly sandwiches to students with delinquent accounts, but received legal advice warning against it.
There you have it. The school board is attempting to collect $22,000 in debt and their only option is stealing kids. When someone comes along and proposes another option, they deny it and stick to stealing kids. The epitome of bureaucratic logic.
Matt Agorist is an honorably discharged veteran of the USMC and former intelligence operator directly tasked by the NSA. This prior experience gives him unique insight into the world of government corruption and the American police state. Agorist has been an independent journalist for over a decade and has been featured on mainstream networks around the world. Agorist is also the Editor at Large at the Free Thought Project, where this article first appeared.
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The school boards CPS attack dogs will end up dead over a .50c lunch debt? If it were my kid I would do it for half price, maybe for free.
What does this have to do with prepping?
I’m glad you asked.
Take care of all your own physical needs, goods, services, education, and only then will you be in a position to be ungovernable.
Wherever somebody else takes one iota of responsibility for you — just one, single slip up — and you’re in a position to be enslaved. Absolute dependence corrupts absolutely.
Absolutely right. I would say this… Absolute dependence “enslaves” absolutely.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_March
learner.org/courses/amerhistory/interactives/sources/E2/e1/sources/5602.php
I learned to read, independently, before the state-appointed time. I could use hand tools, better than braceros, by grammar school.
The public fool system, which, in my time, resembled a prison intake, never taught us anything useful, for our survival.
A property tax pays for this. You are obliged, under force of arms, to appear somewhere. You get indoctrinated by someone other than your parents, exercise, labor, eat, sleep, and crap, on command. The whole premise is against self ownership, in the first place. What follows is logical.
Genius, truer words were never spoken. Anyone who tries to take my loved ones or anything else I have does so at their own peril. Not a smart thing to do.
The Clinton/Epstein/Mossad/Catholic Priest pedophile ring must be running dangerously low on kids. 🙁
Anyone who supports the marines has completely abandoned logic.
The marines are nothing more than the spouse abuse arm of the us government.The marines are nothing more that the pain absorbed by the american populace by absorbing those who truly believe.
The US marines is nothing more than accepting that insecure children set foreign policy.
The marines have the highest levels of spouse abuse in the world yet they wont acknowledge it.
I was in a bus, and the driver just so happened to be a Christian. He felt it was his personal duty to render assistance, at the scene of an accident — unnerved, in spite of the thousands of other motorists, who nonchalantly drove past.
I was at a sports park, and a fire burned, nearby. The level of the smoke dropped beneath our heads. Noone bothers to see whether someone is struggling, immediately nearby, or if it is closing-in on us. They don’t call anyone.
One time, I saw a pitbull, charging a school bus crossing…
These same people see-something-say-something, when a two year old has a melt down, in a garden nursery. One La Raza teacher went Melissa Harris Parry on me, when I said my family visited the snow, and it was cold. Your kid is like a war trophy for these savages, and don’t forget it.
If they get ahold of a child, and if it remains intact, and if you are intended to see it ever again, you will be strung along to pay ransoms, forever.
Streetsmarts is akin to survivalism. Do you have any.
Burn it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uYWYWPc9HU
Evolved rats have infiltrated all organizations and institutions at every level.
I would never want any kid to go hungry, however nowadays there are far too many people trying to mooch. At Walmart I saw a female so gravid it looked liked she was going to give birth on the spot. After using her EBT card to buy a shopping cart full of food, She then whipped out a large roll of cash to pay for an Xbox. Mooching right along…..
I don’t know what to say really mankind is upside down hope we can get it together. Hope for best plan for worst !!
Hope some of the parents kill the tyrants.. our taxes are more than enough to feed children once a damn day
The school board needs to be removed and replaced. One little lawsuit against the district is enough to make a $22,000 debt look like chump change and the mere threat of taking someone’s kid from them is enough to generate a lawsuit. I can’t believe the dystopia we are living in right now.
Don’t know why they call it school because no real true history is taught, only the same tired old proven lies. Are they still teaching Columbus discovered America? Lunches should be free since the food is all low quality gmo laden fake food designed to become dependent on big pharma poisons later on.
Perhaps the parents should stop being so damned lazy and make their kids a lunch instead of expecting the school to feed them.