Seattle man raises money to pay Spokane students’ lunch debts

When Jeff Lew thinks about children who don’t have enough money to buy lunch, he gets agitated.

“Some kids get literally labeled on the arm,” Lew said. “I mean what is this, The Scarlet Letter?”

“Some of these kids’ families may be going through a tough financial situation at home,” he said.

That same man has raised $3,500 on a GoFundMe page to pay Spokane students’ lunch debts and fight lunch shaming.

Lew was referring to a widespread practice where schools mark students in some way, indicating that they don’t have money left in their lunch account or are close to running out. In some districts, cafeteria workers are even supposed to take the children’s food and throw it away if they’re unable to pay.

According to a Department of Agriculture report from 2014, about half of all districts nationwide withheld hot food from students who didn’t have enough money to pay for lunch, instead giving them sandwiches or marking their hands with stamps.

The practice gained nationwide notoriety this spring after a series of critical articles were published in national and local media outlets. After reading a CNN Money article about lunch shaming, Lew called up his son’s school and asked how much lunch debt they had.

About $100, the school said. So Lew started a GoFundMe page. The page was so successful that Lew decided to aim bigger. How about Seattle Public Schools? he thought. By the beginning of July, two months after starting the campaign, he’d raised more than $50,000.

Again, why not go bigger?

He started campaigns for the Tacoma School District and the Renton School District. When he realized that Tacoma was only the third-largest district in the state, he began to look for the second. It was Spokane.

“So I was like, ‘Oh, why not take care of the second-largest school district in the state of Washington,’ ” Lew said.

At the same time, Lew noticed one man kept donating relatively large sums of money to his campaigns.

He gave $3,525 to the Seattle effort; $2,500 to Tacoma; another $2,500 to Renton.

The man was Erik Anderson, CEO of Topgolf Entertainment Group, an international sports entertainment company. Anderson is originally from Spokane.

So, Lew started a campaign. Anderson donated $1,503.

The GoFundMe campaign, which began June 3, originally set out to raise $1,667.73 – the total school lunch debt in Spokane Public Schools.

As of Wednesday, the campaign raised $3,353.

Lew hopes the excess money can be used to pay future Spokane Public Schools lunch debts.

“I am trying to help ease the burden of the Spokane families and make sure these children get to eat a nutritious meal each day at school,” Lew wrote in the GoFundMe description. “I used to look forward to school lunches each day. I am sure these children feel the same!”

Doug Wordell, the director of Spokane Public Schools nutrition services, said Spokane Public Schools has historically done a good job of keeping lunch debt in check. As proof, he points to Seattle Public Schools, which had lunch debt of $20,500, and Tacoma, which had debts of about $17,000.

“I feel like Spokane Public Schools has done a good job balancing a need for a high amount of compassion and some (fiscal) responsibility,” Wordell said.

Lew echoed Wordell, saying he was surprised to discover how small Spokane Public Schools’ debt was. He figured that since Spokane is the second-biggest school district in the state, it would be closer to Seattle’s debt amount.

Still, some of the district policies bothered Lew.

Until the end of this school year, Spokane Public Schools would sometimes place a red apple stamp on students’ arms as a reminder that they were almost out of lunch funds, Wordell said.

Children could choose between the stamp and a letter to take home to parents. Spokane Public Schools also offered alternate meals, such as a sandwich and an apple.

However, new USDA guidelines and increased exposure and concern about lunch shaming prompted the district to change how it handles students who don’t have lunch money or are running low on funds, Wordell said.

Now the district will focus on contacting parents directly. Wordell said some schools have already implemented automated calling systems that can contact families when a child’s lunch balance is low.

Wordell said Spokane has kept debt to a minimum by limiting how many meals a student can charge to their account once they’ve run out of money. This coming year, high school students may charge one meal to their account while elementary students can charge three meals.

“It made me feel good, just knowing they work hard with these families to make sure there isn’t a lot of lunch debt,” Lew said.

Even with the limited number of charged meals available, Wordell said that in many cases teachers, administrators or cafeteria workers will buy students lunch using their own money. If a student is consistently short of money, school staff will encourage parents to consider applying for the free or reduced-price lunch program.

Ultimately, Wordell hopes to increase and improve direct communication with the parents.

“Often what happens is the child gets put between the system and the parent,” he said.

He added, “We want to make sure that Johnny has the meal.”

Lew has run into a few unexpected roadblocks after successfully raising the money. Because of state laws, school districts and district employees cannot receive money directly from fundraising efforts. Instead, a private citizen must donate the money to the district.

None of the school districts has yet received the money, Lew said.

Lew is wary of personally accepting the GoFundMe money because of how it might be taxed. For now, he’s looking for a workaround.

As for the excess money, Lew and Wordell hope that can be set aside to pay off future debts. Wordell estimates that $100 at each school, per year, would cover debts districtwide.

“Once these lunch debts are paid off, it will start again,” Lew said.