A generous donation to Westbrook School District in Maine will help cut the amount of school lunch debt owed by families in half, according to Superintendent Peter Lancia. An anonymous donor gifted the district $10,000 to ease the amount students have accrued this school year.
Like a lot of other school districts, Westbrook doesn’t want young minds to go hungry when they don’t have lunch money, so they feed elementary and middle school kids even when their account is in the red, leaving a big balance parents are supposed to pay back. But not all do or can afford to, so this $10,000 would cover more than 4,300 meals at the elementary or middle schools, where lunch costs $2.30.
“I know this will relieve a very significant amount of the overall debt,” Superintendent Peter Lancia says. “We provide, oftentimes, the only stable meal for the day, the only guarantee for a meal, so I think this person just wanted to show her belief in kids and recognize that there are kids in need. She was able to help them, and I am just really grateful she was able to do that.”
Source: Portland Press Herald