Community partners help pay off student meal debt
Today, all accumulated student meal debt was erased in Greeley-Evans School District 6 thanks to the help of some amazing community partners.
Food4Success is a fundraising campaign sponsored by The Success Foundation Serving Greeley-Evans Schools. The goal of the campaign is to raise funds to help pay off accumulated student meal debt accrued through the District 6 Nutrition Services Department. When students who do not qualify for free meals cannot pay for a meal, they still receive same lunch or breakfast that other students receive. However, if the meal debt isn’t eventually paid by families, then District 6 must pay for that debt out of its general fund.
At the beginning of this school year, District 6 had $147,000 in meal debt. Today, that amount is zero.
Adolfson and Peterson, the contractor building the new Greeley West High School, hosted a golf tournament for its subcontrctors at the Greeley Country Club Monday, October 5 to raise money for Food4Success. The event raised $40,000.
“Being part of this Greeley West project has meant a lot to us, as well as the other companies working on the building,” said Doug Johnson, vice president of Adolfson and Peterson. “It is a privilege for us to be able to give back to the community.”
In addition, last week Atmos Energy also donated $25,000 to the Food4Success campaign. This, coupled with the golf tournament proceeds, raised enough to pay off the current outstanding meal debt balance.
“Words cannot begin to express our deep gratitude for the community’s amazing support for Food4Success,” said Danielle Bock, director of Nutrition Services for District 6. “This is a huge relief to many of our families who simply don’t have the means to pay off this debt. And it will preserve funding for other District 6 programs that may have suffered cuts to pay for this debt.”
Food4Success got its first boost a few weeks ago when the program was featured on The Kyle Clark Show on 9News. Clark does a weekly fundraising campaign for selected non-profits. The publicity from that show brought in more than $90,000 in donations statewide.
“I just want to thank the community and those around the state who supported this campaign,” said District 6 Superintendent Dr. Deirdre Pilch. “Having so many rally around our students in this challenging time gives us hope and renewed energy to continue the important work of educating our children. We are incredibly grateful.