PASADENA, Calif. — "Lunch angel" Kenny Thompson has found a kindred spirit in principal Courtney Merilatt of Garfield Elementary School in Pasadena Independent School District.
Both are passionate about ensuring that all children on campus enjoy a full meal at lunch, and they recently joined forces to make that goal a reality.
Thompson, who works by day as a lighting technician at Theatre Under the Stars, began paying off negative account balances last February at an elementary school in Spring Branch ISD. His efforts then spread to Cy-Fair ISD and HISD.
He became aware of the issue when one of several students he mentors was served a cold cheese sandwich for lunch on a day when the student did not have lunch money.
Thompson discovered that every year, food service departments have delinquent accounts for school lunches. When accounts are not paid, the district typically has to use educational funds to cover the expense.
Some schools have additional funds set aside to help out - but other campuses do not.
On some campuses, if a student's parents have not paid their cafeteria bill, the child is served a subpar lunch like a cheese sandwich.
Thompson went onto the Valley Oaks Elementary School campus to pay the bill of the student he mentored, and that was the beginning of Feed the Future Forward.
"Some parents are working two to three jobs, and they've got three to four kids," Thompson said. "They're just trying to get their kids through school. We can't punish the kids for their parents not being able to pay for their lunches."
Thompson also believes that other children should not be slighted when they simply forgot their lunch money.
"I've seen firsthand how important it is, not to have the stigma associated with these alternative lunches," Thompson said. "If our kids are enrolled in and attending our schools, we need to take care of them and we need to feed them."
Merilatt received a call from Thompson this October. He wanted to pay a visit to the school.
"I said, 'Sure, come on in, anything to help the kids,' " Merilatt said.
She said that Pasadena ISD provides alternative lunches to children who come to school without lunch money or who have a delinquent account at the cafeteria.
"It meets the basic needs, but it's not the same thing everyone else gets," she said. "And that's the thing."
Some of the children are embarrassed when they do not have the same lunch as everyone else, Merilatt said.
"Some kids just deal with it but some kids don't deal with it very well," she said.
At Garfield, Merilatt has created a policy that if the children could not pay, the school would find a way to take care of their lunches.