SAN ANTONIO – Nicole Baptiste is trying to erase the lunch debt for Northside Independent School District families by raising funds via a GoFundMe campaign.
KSAT spoke with NISD spokesperson Barry Perez, who said lunch debt balances for each school change day-to-day due to a variety of circumstances and that the district appreciates Baptiste’s gesture.
Perez said sometimes people contact administrators to pay off students’ lunch debts for that day, or sometimes they’re paid off entirely for a single school.
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At the time Baptiste requested the school lunch debt totals for NISD, the combined debt for all the schools was $27,291.69.
She set a goal of $28,000 for the campaign and plans to put the full amount towards the lunch debt for NISD schools.
“No child is ever denied breakfast or lunch because of lack of money or because of a negative balance in their child nutrition account, if an individual chooses to make a donation of funds to the district, their donation will be used to address lunch account debt,” Perez said.
The campaign is not an official campaign from the district but the funds are expected to be given to administrators to help bring all negative balances to zero.
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Perez told KSAT if there is excess money beyond what is required to wipe out student’s lunch debts it would be set aside to help cover future debts students might incur when they don’t have money to pay for their lunch.
Donations “will be allocated based upon need and at the discretion of the Child Nutrition Department,” Baptiste said in the GoFundMe description.