School owes ‘angel’ debt of gratitude
Nonprofit led by Spring Branch mentor helps struggling families pay off lunch balances
Students at a southwest Houston charter school ate cheese pizza, side salads, baby carrots and fruit cups for lunch Thursday.
It was a feast compared to days earlier when unpaid lunch tabs of up to $15 each prevented 185 Harmony School of Exploration students from being able to go through the lunch line, leaving them access only to the school’s alternative — a granola bar.
That’s when Houston’s socalled lunch angel stepped in and paid the students’ total balances of $1,509.
“These children are not bankers — they don’t need to worry about the finances; they probably hear enough about it at home,” said Kenny Thompson, a Spring Branch mentor who founded the nonprofit Feed the Future Forward in 2014. “I heard that there was a need over here for some kids who had a negative lunch account balance, and I got here as soon as I could.”
Thompson was contacted by second-grade teacher Rebecca Briscoe after students, some in tears, told her they did not get breakfast.
“I look at my class as future cardiologists, congressional members, football players — I want to set the tone for that,” Briscoe said.
This went on for a week before Briscoe remembered hearing about the “lunch angel” who paid for school lunches. After some research, she reached Thompson on Jan. 15. Thompson said he would take care of it by Wednes-
day.
Texas doesn’t require school districts to serve alternative lunches, but some opt to do so. Snacks, which differ from school to school, are offered when students reach a negative lunch account balance. Texas, after HB 3562 passed on Jun. 18, requires from schools a “grace period after the exhaustion of the balance of a meal card or account used by students to purchase meals in public schools.”
Susan Rooney, child nutrition director for Harmony Schools, said that even before the legislation, Harmony students receive a week’s worth of free meals before only receiving the granola bar.
“We have chosen to provide them an alternative meal because hungry children can’t learn,” Rooney said. “We want to make sure they have something.”
But Daphne Hernandez, University of Houston health and human performance assistant professor, said granola bars do not provide sufficient calories for a child.
“Some of my kids were sad and not as active in class,” Briscoe said. “It’s like a car with no gas.”
Harmony schools inform parents when their students’ account reaches zero and sends them an application for free or reduced lunch.
“We can’t require them to (fill out the application), because that’s against the law, but we do want it to be easily accessible,” Rooney said.
Once the application is approved, students can begin receiving free or reduced lunch. The process takes one or two days, Rooney said. Parents can later take care of the negative balance.
Thompson learned about alternative lunches when one of the students he mentored in the Spring Branch ISD was affected by them, and he didn’t like it.
“Kids are smart, and they can be brutal too,” Thompson said. “They know that ‘This child has the (alternative) lunch, and they’re poor (because) don’t have enough money and that’s why they’re eating that.’”
He then went to the school’s principal and the next day, he paid off all 66 negative balances in the school. He told a friend who shared the story on social media which eventually went viral.
“I turned to my wife and asked her what we were going to do, and she said ‘We’re going to feed kids’,” Thompson said. “So we started a non-profit.”
Money started pouring in from all over the world and on Feb. 2 Feed the Future Forward will turn 2.
While Harmony informs parents about programs for free or reduced lunch, Thompson said not every school does a good job of that.
“When I enrolled my son last year in high school, by the time I walked out, I’d spent about $400 on PTA, PTO, band equipment, rental this, rental that,” Thompson said. “Nothing about how much it costs to feed my son in school. I’ve been to the wards and taken care of those kids. But I’ve been to Memorial, River Oaks — the nice neighborhoods— and folks are losing jobs; parents are struggling.”
Thompson has helped students in Spring Branch, Aldine, Katy, Pasadena, Alvin and Houston. He has also help set up sustainable lunch programs.
He’s been asked for help outside of Houston, but he said his focus is here.
“Someone said, if you want to change the world, change what’s outside your window,” Thompson said. “This is our community. It takes a village to raise a child, and this is our village. I want to be ‘out-of-business’ tomorrow. I would know, at that point, that the alternative lunch is not being sold and that those kids in school are eating. That’s my goal.”