During lunch, many DVHS students pick up their DoorDash orders or home lunches from the cart outside the office. However, in recent months, these lunches have started to be stolen with an increasing frequency.

Many times, parents drop off their students’ lunch in the cart at a time that is convenient for them, which may be multiple hours before the lunch period begins. This leaves the lunch unsupervised for a long period of time during which anyone can grab it, with little to no likelihood of being caught.

Lunches are especially likely to be stolen when they are in a bag from a popular restaurant or fast food place.

“My mom got me lunch from Subway and left it in the cart during fourth period. I went to pick it up right after lunch started, [but] it was nowhere to be seen,” Neev Bid, a junior who has had her lunch stolen, says.

Some students prefer to order their food themselves through DoorDash delivery. However, this comes with its own plethora of risks.

Another student at DVHS, Drishya Sanghavi, explains, “My friend and I ordered DoorDash the period before [lunch started.] [When we went] to pick up our lunch, we noticed these two girls that were talking to a man with Chick-Fil-A in his hand. Those two girls took the bag and [said] it was theirs, [but] it was [actually] ours. [When we went to] the man to ask for our food, [he] said he [already] gave it to [someone], so we knew our order got stolen.”

Since there is usually no official verification process, stealing other students’ DoorDash orders remains fairly easy. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that many DoorDash deliverers don’t even verify the buyer’s identity. 

“The DoorDasher didn’t speak [much] English, so he didn’t ask what our name was or anything,” Sanghavi continued. “But, they should ask people to show proof to confirm the purchase.”

Many students have reported this issue to the office, but they have not been presented with any solution.

“They just told me there’s nothing they can do about it,” Bid says.

Because the office staff doesn’t adequately address the issue, many students choose not to even report the problem in the first place.

“We haven’t received many reports of students’ lunches being stolen,” one of the office staff explained. 

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Since the school administration doesn’t recognize that this is such a prevalent issue, they are not monitoring the area where the lunches are being stolen.

“We discourage students [from ordering lunch through DoorDash] since we don’t monitor that area, so [we can’t prevent] their orders [from being] stolen,” the office staff continued.

In order to prevent their lunches or DoorDash orders from being stolen, students need to take steps of their own. 

When students are receiving their lunch from home, they can ask their parents to drop it off on the table inside the office, which is a monitored area, rather than the cart outside to decrease the likelihood of it being stolen. 

When students are DoorDashing their lunch, they can tell the DoorDasher what they are wearing and tell them to ask an identifying question before handing the order over. However, this is not a foolproof method since some DoorDashers will ignore these requests. Alternatively, students can try DoorDashing to a location that is not as crowded as the front office. They can also come to the location they directed their DoorDasher to five minutes prior to the time they are supposed to arrive to ensure that they are able to take the order immediately instead of keeping the DoorDasher waiting.

While having one’s lunch stolen is certainly a frustrating issue to deal with, measures can and should be taken to reduce the frequency with which this occurs.