The case of Sulmona, a 4 year old child left without food in the canteen due to a debt of less than 9 euros

Parents forget to pay a ticket 8 euros and 97 cents (the equivalent of the last two meals provided by the kindergarten canteen) and their 4 year old son is left without food, while his classmates eat in front of him. It happened in a nursery school in Sulmona, in the province of L’Aquila. The child’s father, a teacher, was notified at lunchtime.

The man told the Messenger: «I found my four year old son in tearshumiliated in front of the whole class. The teachers got him some dumplings from the other children’s plates.” When it came to serving lunch, the operators “blocked” the service.

«I didn’t receive any communication on the Ristocloud portal about the exhaustion of the credit and, frankly, I didn’t notice it» the man said again. And since last year the alert via text message has been suspended. “It’s absurd, taking into account that until October 21st they left us without a canteen.” This year, in fact, the school lunch was activated significantly late and in any case nothing could justify the bureaucratic barbarity of a similar gesture, as was experienced by the community.

Not even the “zero tolerance” policy recently flaunted by the administrators of the city of confetti, due to around 11 thousand euros of uncollected credits: in a municipal notice dated 5 July, relating to outstanding balances from previous years, it is written that “in the event of arrears and the persistence of the negative account, future use of the canteen will not be guaranteed.”

«As a parent and as a teacher I am very angry», concluded the child’s father «because beyond everything I think of the social implications of the affair: I am a teacher and I was able to ask for emergency permission to leave school early and go get my son. I wonder, though, what would have happened if it had happened to another family, perhaps with parents who both work and have no flexibility or are away from home. What would have become of that child: would they have left him on an empty stomach? Placed aside waiting for them to finish clearing the table? It’s an intolerable method and one that doesn’t help educate kids.”. A potentially traumatic experience. The local journalistic site Ondatv he later published the reply of mayor of Sulmona Gianfranco Di Piero: «I categorically exclude that the minor was left without food. If the second one was missing we can certainly talk about a mix-up. Food was never denied due to arrears even when the accumulated debts were more substantial. Unlike past years, families are now notified via an alert message from the platform to avoid accumulating debts. Message that the minor’s father received.”