'It Takes A Village': Cafe Raises $$ To Help Pay Off Arvada High School Lunch Debts
ARVADA, Colo. (CBS4) - For some young students, debt can stack up as early as grade school. It's because in certain cases, they don't have the means to pay for school lunch. That's why one local restaurant in Arvada has been raising money to help.
"It takes a village we really need to take care of our community," Deanna Karavasilis said.
Karavasilis is the co-owner of George's Cafe. She told us she held a bake sale in December.
"Right here we had a set-up table," she pointed to an area near the entrance.
It was a simple sale filled with goodies members of the community brought in, yet it raised $3,008.
"When we did the bake sale for Arvada High School, you would not believe the community how it stepped up. Everybody was interested, everybody was as appalled as I was, nobody knew about it. They were surprised at the amount of homeless students. And so we've been able to make a good impact," Karavasilis said.
Karavasilis heard from some of her customers that some students were struggling to pay for food, so she donated the money towards Arvada High School's lunch debt. It cleared the balance for this new year, but the problem is much bigger. Jefferson County Public Schools estimates it has $140,000 worth of school lunch debt. It says that has tripled in a year's time. The problem is happening across the country. When CBS4 checked with Denver Public Schools, their latest meal debt came to about $400,000.
"We don't 'lunch shame' in Jeffco, we feed every kid a meal," Beth Wallace said.
Wallace is the executive director for food nutrition services with Jeffco Public Schools. She said some students accrue the debt simply because their parents don't monitor their account, however the reality is some can't afford it.
"When it turns into bad debt and we can't collect it, it doesn't come out of the child nutrition funds, it comes out of the general funds," Wallace said.
While hunger can affect a student's ability to learn, the debt is also a growing problem that Wallace is working to address.
This time, Karavasilis was able to contribute a sizeable check to Arvada High to help, but for her, it's just a small price to lift debt away from students in need.
"I can't imagine, I mean, high school is hard enough," she said.
If you're interested in helping Jeffco Public Schools with this debt, you can find more information at a special page of jeffcopublicschools.org.
