In your case, there is an easy solution. Send out a Bochur who d/n pay full tuition during “Bein Hasdorim” (one who would not learn during that time) as “part of payment”. Or have the administrator do it (who is under salary anyway). “
I feel the need to comment about this statement, as a parent whose kids were always on tuition assistance, and substantially so, at that. To suggest that a bochur go to the recycling center, as an implied payback for getting a scholarship, might superficially sound as a fair idea, but in truth it is not. Kids whose parents are in need of scholarship are often already put-upon by their family circumstances. It happens that my husband and I felt very strongly that we wanted to show our hakoras hatov to our Yeshivas, and we did so by going to the local bakery once a week for over a decade, to pick up three huge garbage bags filled with the leftover loaves of bread, rolls, and danishes, that the bakery was donating to the Yeshivah for the bochurim’s breakfast and lunch. We were one of a VERY few couples who agreed to this commitment, though there were MANY who were on scholarship and they never helped out. We also volunteered the efforts of all of our children and ourselves to sell merchandise during Bazaar time each year, and I personally stuffed thousands of envelopes over the years, for the Yeshivah Dinner mailing and made hundreds of calls for the dinner journal ads and reservations. we did that because we felt it was the right thing to do. BUT, had we been basically blackmailed into doing so, “because you’re on scholarship and you OWE us,” I would have felt humiliated.
All parents should feel the achrayus to help their Yeshivas, whether or not they receive financial aid. If the school wants a scholarship student or parent to help out with something, it should never be put to them as that being the reason. They have no idea what stresses and time constraints are on those parents. Maybe the father is working three jobs (as in my case) and the mother works at night when the father comes home, as I did. Maybe the bochur has to watch his younger siblings and is not available to go “bein hasedorim” to a recycling center, and maybe he has no car to do so, anyway.
It is one thing to ask all parents in a school to give of their time. It is quite another to make some of them feel like they have to do it because they are the “poor relation.”
And I also do not necessarily feel the administrators should do this – it is not b’kovodik to them. We could not believe that the menahel opf our sons’ Yeshivah did the pick up one fo the days each week because they could not get other parents to do it besides us. There are surely other employees, custodial staff, for example, who could do this as part of their duties. If there is money involved that would come back to the school, then the administrator could go over the number of bottles or cans involved, with the custodian, so they both know how much money is due back. In any case,
no one should be made to feel embarrassed. If a school ever wants to implement such a program, it needs to be discussed upfront as l’chatchilah part of the conditions for receiving a scholarship, but not be sprung on them later on, “because after all, you are on scholarship.” It might sounds like exactly the same thing (the end result is the same, after all), but it isn’t. There is a psychological difference between both scenarios.