Eyes that see the good in things: Lunch money

Each month, Kate and Derek Ehnert, the owners of the Hillsboro Cafe and Bakery designate a cupcake flavor as the cupcake of the month and donate a percentage of the proceeds from those cupcake sales to the Hillsboro Public Schools unpaid lunch accounts during the past year. Since they started the program in 2019, they have sold 2,425 cupcakes to help pay unpaid lunch balances.

According to a recent article in the “Grand Forks Herald,” the Ehnerts approached Hillsboro Public Schools Superintendent Paula Suda with their plan, and she was happy to help them carry it out. The school district doesn’t turn away students whose lunch balances are unpaid, so the school absorbs the cost.

The Ehnerts’ donations raised awareness about the Hillsboro School District’s unpaid lunch balances and other organizations and individuals also began donating. Proceeds from garage sales, unused accounts of students who have graduated, checks dropped off at the school and sales of paintings have all gone to the Angel Lunch Fund.

During the past 11 months since the program was founded, $5,165 has been donated to the Hillsboro Public Schools Angel Lunch Fund. The majority of that amount is from the Ehnerts, Suda said. The donations have reduced the unpaid lunch balance to $2,700.

The article in the Herald was one of those articles that’s a feel-good story, where community members see a need and step forward to fill it. After doing a little more digging, it wasn’t difficult to find stories like these all over the state. Once they find out that the community is having difficulties with unpaid lunch balances, individuals are stepping forward to pay off those balances.

A quick online search turned up stories about an anonymous person who donated $28,672 to the Fargo School system, to erase the debt for the first half of this school year. The donation has been part of an effort this past year to make sure all students receive school lunches and their families don’t suffer because of it. No students are denied a hot lunch at Fargo schools, but families of those children are still billed for the expense.

The effort started in September when Fargo musicians performed a Lunch Aid concert at The Sanctuary events center organized by Jason Boynton and Kari Lugo that raised about $19,000 to help erase the student lunch debt from the past school year.

There was also a story about a Bismarck photographer who launched a fundraiser to collect money to address the $23,000 in unpaid meal debt in that city’s public school system.

Minot Public Schools came under fire when complaints about its policy were termed to be “lunch-shaming” the students. The board invited the public to a discussion about the issue.

It’s easy for us to support an idea like feeding hungry kids, so they can focus in school. We also may have believed that the free and reduced lunch program solved these issues but weren’t aware just how many kids are considered “food insecure” in North Dakota.

The Great Plains Food Bank (GPFB), in its “Hunger in North Dakota, 2018” study, found that 1 in 5 North Dakota children are considered food insecure, which is defined as a lack of consistent access to enough food for an active, healthy life. Especially in low-income areas, parents reported skipping meals themselves to feed their kids. However, the parents reported that there were times that their kids also missed meals.  

Those statistics raise the importance of school nutrition programs, as it makes schools a place where a child is guaranteed a warm meal.

North Dakota receives approximately $80 million annually in federal funds to operate its school nutrition programs. Schools receive about 20% of their food from USDA commodities and receive federal reimbursement based on set rates for paid, reduced price and free meals. Communication to parents regarding the federal program is so important to districts, as much of a school’s funding is tied to the number of free and reduced-price meals it serves.

USDA has set up the system to connect the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to school nutrition programs, and thus, making it easier to identify families who fall under the free and reduced-price percentages. Families that receive SNAP benefits automatically qualify for free meals and are not required to fill out the annual back-to-school paperwork.

There are challenges and deterrents in identifying and capturing other families. One deterrent, particularly in small towns, could be that families have concerns about other community members knowing their income. In some cases, pride is the reason households choose not to complete a free and reduced-price meal application and in other cases, the paperwork simply gets lost in the shuffle of daily life.

In the 2018-19 school year, 31% of the total student population in North Dakota received free or reduced-price meals. At 31%, North Dakota ranks below the national average, which is estimated to be close to 55%.

Schools bear the impact of unsubmitted applications. Often, it results in unpaid meal debt that continues to balloon. When schools are unable to collect, the money comes out of the general fund, leaving less money for funding other programs and technologies.

Unpaid meal debt is not a new issue for schools, but it has been a talking point in recent years with the stories of lunch shaming, as schools have made an effort to collect the unpaid debt. An American Bar Association (ABA) publication describes “lunch shaming” as the overt identification and stigmatization of any student who does not have money to buy a school meal. The purpose of lunch shaming, the ABA went on, is to embarrass a student and parent(s) so that a school lunch debt is paid quickly, in turn reducing a school’s financial burden.

In response, the USDA now requires schools to have an unpaid meal policy that is communicated to parents, teachers, cooks and other stakeholders, which schools must follow.

There will, undoubtedly, be more talk in the future and more people coming forward to help with this issue as schools struggle to find the answer. Maybe each of us can look within ourselves to find out how we can be a part of the solution.

We would love to share local stories about the good things your eyes are seeing.

Stop in to share your stories with us, give us a call at 947-2417 or e-mail us at [email protected]. Or send a letter to Eyes That See the Good in Things, c/o Allison Lindgren, The Transcript 6 8th St N., New Rockford, ND 58356.