Austin Residents Band Together to Pay Student Lunch Debt for AISD

On April 11th, Austin360 published a story online concerning school lunches. Millions of children receive free or discounted school lunches, and even those whose parents earn “too much” money to qualify for these programs, struggle to pay for a daily lunch for their children. Around the country, stories of “lunch-shaming” have come up where kids are forced to “earn” their lunches publicly through cleaning tables or wearing a stamp that says “I need lunch money” on their arm.

Austin360 investigated to see how AISD is doing with school lunch funding. “Of the 80,000 meals served through AISD each day, about 700 of them are “courtesy” meals…Those meals add up to $350,000 per year that the food service department tries to absorb into its budget,” they explain. The district has set up an account on EdBacker.com to raise money, and as KHOU reports, the campaign had surpassed its goal of raising $10,000 to “help bring student meal accounts current” on Wednesday (April 12th) morning. Now, the campaign has reached over $19,000!

If you want to get involved, click here for the official EdBacker campaign. Or you can speak with the front office of a specific school to pay off student lunch debt (for an individual student or multiple students), as well.