Photo courtesy of reporter Kai Winstead-LeRoy

  One of the fixtures of our campus this last year has been the free school lunch that is available to all San Luis Obispo High School students. With a variety of different food choices offered throughout the week, it provides much needed access to inexpensive lunch alternatives for students. While some students may see school lunches as something unfit for eating, many others enjoy it.

  “I personally love school lunches. I think that they have improved a lot since I was a freshman,” said senior Victor Mejia.

  In previous years, the school provided options to purchase school lunches with a variety of options such as chips and pizza. This year all students, regardless of need, had a free lunch option available to them. One aspect that has helped keep the school lunches fresh throughout the year is its rotation of different lunch options.

   “I think that the different food options help keep lunches from getting boring. It’s nice to be able to eat something new everyday,” said Mejia.

Another thing that has helped students this year is the availability of food for people with different dietary restrictions. Every meal has a vegetarian alternative and there are cheese boxes provided consistently everyday.

“I enjoy the fact that there is always something that I can eat. I think that it allows for the food choices to be helpful for anyone regardless of what they can eat. My only complaint would be that I can’t eat the salad anymore because I am allergic to strawberries,” said senior Isabelle Preston.

Giving students the ability to eat for free without concerns about dietary restrictions allows them to focus on school. While there will always be issues with providing food for an entire school, the school lunch is important to many students on campus.