Schools end year with cleared student meal debts

The Hot Springs County School District was able to wrap up 2021 with its student meal debt cleared, as Food Service Director Hannah Brooks reported to the school board Dec. 16, news which incoming board chair Sherman Skelton deemed “a celebration.”

Business Manager Chauncy Johnson lavished praise upon Brooks before she elaborated on this good news, describing it as “a pleasure” to work with her, and crediting her with “so much work in the background that I feel privileged to know about.”

According to Johnson, Brooks has been “very busy,” but “not just busy to be busy,” as she “constantly improves” the district’s processes and programs for food service.

“She was also voted Citizen of the Year, if you didn’t read that in the paper, and it was very well deserved,” Johnson added. “She’s done so many things to keep school lunch functioning, whether we’re in school or not.”

Narrowing his focus to the district’s student meal debt, Johnson explained that reducing that debt “has been a passion of hers, and mine, to try and figure out, but she’s really taken the lead on this specific project … It’s a very touching story, and she just continues to knock it out of the park.”

Brooks elaborated that, while much of the district’s student meal debt was able to be frozen with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the district never lost sight of the fact that the debt was still there.

Several years ago, when community members asked how they could help students, Brooks spoke with them about student meal debt and food insecurity, which she noted is a problem not only for the Hot Springs County School District, but for school children across the country.

Over time, private community members started donating to the district on a regular basis, with an eye toward clearing those student meal debts.

“Some debts, we were able to pay off,” Brooks said. “We always prioritized our seniors at the end of the year.”

At the Food Service Directors Conference this October in Cheyenne, Wyoming First Lady Jennie Gordon spoke about her Wyoming Hunger Initiative, with the goal of paying off student meal debt throughout the state of Wyoming, if not at the end of this school year, then the end of the next school year.

“Some districts were able to come up with 50% of what was left in their districts, and the initiative would come up with the other 50%,” Brooks said. “As a district, we’d reached the point where we’d pretty much asked and been given just about anything we could get, and potentially had left. I was running out of resources to find 50% more.”

Fortunately, Brooks recounted how Gordon and the Wyoming Hunger Initiative had responded to the district’s needs, by asking how many students and families could potentially be affected by such aid.

“They blessed us with a check for 100% of what we have left,” Brooks said. “They took care of us here at Hot Springs County, so we’re now one of just a few districts that already has their (student meal debt) taken care of, in helping with their initiative.”

Brooks estimated the check was for slightly more than $2,600.

“We’ve come a long way just to get to that small amount,” Brooks said. “It’s on behalf of two donors; a private couple out of Dubois, and a credit union. I shared with them that people think we’re the school lunch heroes, but they’re my heroes.”