With its six-figure student meal debt paid, Greeley-Evans School District 6 has come up with a way to prevent future budget shortfalls.
Beginning later this month, the district will roll out a program called Feed It Forward its Titan School Solutions app.
The concept of Feed It Forward is predicated on a community helping community system. When a family loads its student’s meal account with money, they can designate other money to go into the school’s Feed It Forward fund for another family or student in need.
Greeley-Evans School District 6 Director of Nutrition Services Danielle Bock said Feed It Forward will go live on Oct. 16.
“It’s going to allow us to pay for student meals so they don’t go into debt,” Bock said. “It’s community helping to take care of other community members when they can’t afford that school meal.”
On Oct. 5, with community response to a Denver TV news program highlighting the debt, the district completed paying off the nearly $148,000 of student school-meal debt dating to 2014.
“We’re going to fight the debt before it becomes debt,” Bock said.
The Feed It Forward program is based on a concept that has been in effect nationally for many years, Bock said. Previously known as “Angel Funds,” such programs have received more recognition since the death of Philando Castile in Minnesota in 2016.
Castile, a Black man, was a nutrition services employee in the Saint Paul Public School District when he was shot and killed by a police officer during a traffic stop in a Saint Paul suburb.
“The death of Philando Castile gave it wings and made it a national movement to pay off school debt,” Bock said.
Bock said the program will mean nominal costs for the district. It will pay a percentage of the credit card processing fees incurred when families add money to the Feed It Forward fund.
Bock said the district’s recently settled student meal debt was not accrued by families that qualify for free-and-reduced meals. The families behind the $147,819 debt were those whose income status was too high to qualify for meal assistance yet still needed help.
Bock said the qualifying income for a family to qualify for free-and-reduced meal is approximately $42,000 for a family of four.
“You can’t live on that on the Front Range,” Bock said.
Bock said the Feed It Forward program will work in District 6 because there will always be families in need. The program will give them “a solution they can feel dignified in,” according to Bock.
“Greeley is a boom and bust town and when you have major industries like oil and gas, there will always be families in Greeley and Evans who will need the help of the community,” Bock continued. “This is the right thing for Greeley because we want to provide nutritious meals with dignity to our families. They’re not asking for a hand out.”
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District 6 to introduce Feed It Forward to prevent future school-meal debt - Greeley Tribune
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