Society has made an assertion that the reason why there is a high failure and dropout rate in public schools was because of unskilled , unmotivated teachers, lack of books, poor facilities, etcetera, etcetera. While this may have a huge impact on a child’s learning, there’s an aspect which stares us right in the eyes but that which we have neglected— poverty.
Mom said that many kids drop out of school , not because they do not have the brains , but because they do not have enough food . In fact, how can a child fill his brains with new vocabulary , scientific conclusions, or mathematical formulas, when his own stomach grumbles so loud that it distracts him or her from concentrating in class?
A few weeks ago, mom had been talking about putting up a charity to feed children in less privileged schools. She had been thinking her brains out for a suitable name for about a week , that she just gave up and said that we should just forget about the name and just do what we have to do.
Thus, the story of the day opens with a boy waking up in the morning , and saying, “It’s going to be a good day today”. I expected that we were going out for groceries to canvass food prices for our not-yet-named charity that will be giving away food for a school in our area on Friday August 12, 2011.
Of course, mom wanted to pay less money for each child so that we could feed more children, more often. We wanted to help poor children by feeding them good and healthy food once a week. We were starting with the Holy Spirit Elementary School near our house. We chose this school because this school has a large number of indigent kids in our area.
When my mom told me and my sister that we were going to the wet market, my sister said “aww.. man, I hate that place”. My mother said, “don’t worry, I promise it’s going to be fast, we’re only going to look at the food prices”. We took a bath we wore our clothes and my sister said “that was fast”. We rode a jeep to the wet market and took note of food prices of some basic goods – fruits, vegetables, salt, macaroni, etc. These were our findings:
Commonwealth market
salt -10 pesos per kilo
macaroni – P56 per kilo
seedless oranges – P20 per kilo
apple – P20 per 10 pieces grapes – P50 pesos per 1/4 kilo lychee – P45 per 1/2 kilo Longgan – P25 per 1/4 kilo mango – P40 per 1/2 kilo rambutan – P25 per 10 pieces
eggs – P12 per 3 pieces
flour – P46 per kilo
sugar – P44 per kilo
wheat flour – P40 per kilo
Macaroni – P56 per kilo
brown sugar – P37 per kilo
salt – P10 per kilo
pepper – P260 per kilo.
After the wet market we went to Shopwise, on a jeep. Here were the results:
Shopwise
salt – P34 per 500g
grapes – P146.96 per gram seedless oranges – P166 per 6 pieces apples – P125 per 12 pieces
Delmonte salad macaroni – P101 per kilo Surebuy salad macaroni – P76 per kilo
Delmonte spaghetti sauce – P78.50 per kilo
Quickmelt cheese – P316 per 950g
Cheezee cheese – 204 pesos per 950g
Magnolia butter gold – P99 per 225g
Nestle fresh milk – P67 per 1 litter Dutch mill – P8 per 90ml Alaska yogurt – P11 per 110ml
Sugar – P100 per 2 1/2 kilos
Mayo – P321 per 75g
Oats – P107 per 800g
Paper bags – P37.50 per 50 pieces
small paper bags – P52 per 100 pieces
paper plates – P100 per 75 pieces.
Were out of the house for 2 hours and 30 minutes. Were very tired when we got home. My sister was sweating and very stinky :P. I have to admit I also hate going to the wet market, but I love going to supermarkets 😀 because it’s not hot it’s not stinky and it’s not slippery.
We planned to make macaroni and cheese and provide bananas for dessert. I used the prices that we bought from Shopwise and wet market and compared the costs for making 65 macaroni and cheeses. That’s when my mom started to teach me to use LibreOffice Spreadsheet. Oh, the surprises of homeschooling!
