Rapid City, S.D. (KELO) — Rapid City Area Schools have $100,000 in school lunch debt and now the City Council is stepping up to help.
If people make donations, the council will match up to $25,000.
The City Council is challenging people in Rapid City to help out kids in need.
“I think it’s a very valid use of that kind of money to rescue the schools from a situation they shouldn’t have. Frankly, we wouldn’t be in this situation if some of the federal money that’s available for this was approved at the state level,” City Councilman Bill Evans said.
Money for the match will come from a stipend the city receives yearly that’s been used for conferences and conventions in the past.
“I do think the fact that people know when they donate that they’re really almost donating double just because of the city doing the match up to $25,000 is a huge deal. So we really could take a big chunk out of the negative balance. We’re always of course encouraging people to complete free and reduced meal applications,” Student Nutrition manager Krista Leischner said.
Rapid City Area Schools say that no kid will go left without a school lunch as daily nutrition is vital to their learning ability.
“We don’t want to deny any child the chance for lunch and we do have kids that simply can’t afford that day after day, they just don’t have any money. And this is a rich enough city that we can afford to pay for that,” Evans said.
“Factually we know that school meals are at sometimes a student-only meal that they get during the school day and so we really do take our job seriously in the sense of we want to feed every student. When they come through the lunch line and they’re hungry, we want to feed them,” Leischner said.
The Rapid City Council plans to match funds through the end of November.
Families looking to apply for free or reduced school lunches can find more information here.
