STURGIS, S.D. – As the federal government has phased out its pandemic-era free school lunch program, school districts are once again dealing with school lunch debt.
According to Rhonda Ramsdell, food services director for the Meade School District 46-1, the amount of debt this school year is higher than in past years; $5,000 compared t0 $4,500 with two months of the current school year still left.
Ramsdell says the district saw a 20% decrease in school lunch participation, mainly because meals are no longer free. Ramsdell adds that she believes parents see themselves as just outside of the financial qualifications for reduced-price lunches because they received inflationary raises and so don’t apply for reduced meal grants.
But event with that, Ramsdell says the School Nutrition Program criteria didn’t keep pace with inflation. “We still have a lot of students that are food insecure. ”
Area organizations, businesses and individuals are stepping in to help alleviate the school lunch debt for kids and the food services program. Ramsdell said that approximately $6,500 of lunch debt has been paid by such efforts.
That includes recent efforts by Whitewood Creek Chiropractic where co-owner Kylee Johnson recognized the real issue of kids not having enough to eat, close to home. That led to her and others starting a social media post asking for nominations of schools where donations would go toward school lunch debt.
The response was so great, with hundreds of comments and 16 schools nominated, the Johnson’s decided to draw for seven schools that would receive food service donations.
Those include Whitewood Elementary, Bison School District, Belle Fourche Middle School, Stagebarn Middle School, Agar-Blunt-Onida School District, Sturgis Brown High School, and Sturgis Elementary School.
