School Lunch Debt Covered

Three local GoFundMe campaigns raised over three thousand dollars to help students and families with unpaid student lunch debt. From the News-Gazette yesterday:

Student-lunch debts at 3 Champaign schools erased with crowdfunding
...
It's not uncommon for districts to end the year with debt from unpaid student lunches, and that includes Champaign.

"Families forget to pay, or perhaps haven't signed up for free or reduced meals yet," Unit 4 spokeswoman Emily Schmit said. "We continue to feed kids, regardless of the debt."

What is less common is a community-backed erasure of a school's entire debt, which is what all three GoFundMe campaigns accomplished. In May, Carrie Busey's student debt totaled $821, South Side's was $593 and Barkstall's was $1,126.

All three campaigns exceeded their goals and gave extra money to the district.

— Carrie Busey donors raised $1,055, just more than the $1,000 goal.

— South Side donations pulled in $1,255, beating a $1,000 goal.

— Barkstall donations reached $1,359 with only seven donations, thanks to an anonymous donation of $1,100.

Martha Mills said she started the South Side fundraiser after seeing Sweet's page online. Then, another campaign popped up after that.

"Basically what happened was we were kind of copycats," she said. "I just kind of went off the (Carrie Busey) page, and I know that someone tried to do it at Barkstall after ours."

More information at the full article here.