(Photo: @marsaimartin/Instagram)
Marsai Martin is a young boss with her heart in the right place, a combination fans both love and need more of.
The 15-year-old “Black-ish” star is using her platform to bring attention to an issue that children across the United States still struggle with, even in the land of opportunity: access to school lunches. The Genius Production company owner has partnered with nonprofit School Lunch for All to become “a champion for free school lunch for all K-12 students.”
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The “Little” executive producer wrote an editorial in Teen Vogue to raise awareness of the issue and break down, in her own words, why the problem isn’t one to be taken lightly.
She began by reflecting on seeing her grandmother, a former lunch lady, saddened by the students she wasn’t able to feed due to their parents’ financial hardships. “When I was younger, she would tell me about the kids she’d see sitting alone at lunch, hungry and embarrassed that they didn’t have food. I could always tell how much it bothered her that these kids didn’t have access to what should be available for all students in school.”
This left a mark on young Marsai, and now that she’s in a position to help her peers, she’s making sure to do just that.
“Whether or not students have access to lunch at school impacts not only their health but also their ability to learn and perform in the classroom,” she wrote in the July 20 Teen Vogue piece. “According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), there is a direct positive correlation between students’ health and their academic performance, education behavior, and cognitive skills and attitudes. Students who are well-nourished also miss less school and have fewer behavioral issues in the classroom.”
Source: ‘Black-ish’ Star Marsai Martin Is Using Her Voice to End School Lunch Debt and Lunch Shaming
