Relieving Student Lunch Debt
“Student lunch debt is a tremendous stress on the families and the students, and also the communities ... and there’s going to be a lot of burdens that are going to be relieved after today...” These remarkable words were spoken by our president and CEO, Brian Rohrbacher, in regards to the elimination of negative balances in the school accounts of 3,000 students.
Thanks to the launch of “Wyoming Angel Accounts,” an initiative that included cooperation between first lady Jennie Gordon’s Wyoming Hunger Initiative, the Mountain West Credit Union Foundation, and Dan and Cynthia Starks of Dubois, $100,000 were raised in the hopes of eliminating meal debt throughout Wyoming. In fact, this was the entirety of the state’s balance!
While some districts had taken steps to help alleviate this debt problem, some students chose to go hungry due to feelings of shame.
Even with this incredible achievement, there are still more causes to tackle. Brian had this to say, “I think of the saying: ‘If you don’t take chances, nothing happens.’ Well, I hope after this that we continue to take a bunch more chances.”