Odd Fellows to give $1,322.75 for unpaid Jamestown School District lunches

Members of the Sonora Odd Fellows plan to present a check for $1,322.75 to the Jamestown School District board next week to pay off the district’s unpaid free and reduced-cost meals program accounts.

It costs $495 to feed one student school lunches for one academic school year if that child eats every day, Contessa Pelfrey, superintendent for Jamestown School District, said Thursday.

The district has 287 students taking part in the free and reduced meal program, and they represent 71.9 percent of the district’s 381 students, Bebo Malone, administrative assistant for the district, said in a phone interview.

Families who qualify for the free and reduced meal program are considered to be living in poverty, Pelfrey said. A nearly identical number of district students, 288, are identified by the district as socio-economically disadvantaged.

This is the first time people with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Sonora #10 have stepped up to pay any school district’s unpaid lunch accounts, Karen Patterson Mcgettigan, secretary for the nonprofit Sonora Odd Fellows Foundation, said Thursday.

In the past, other local donors have helped pay off unpaid Jamestown School District lunch accounts, Malone said.

“We ask for their current balance for their unpaid lunches for the year and that’s what they tell us, $1,322.75,” Pat Dambacher with the Sonora Odd Fellows said. “This is the first time we’ve done this. Jamestown was just a random pick. Next year we might pick another school.”

Mcgettigan said the Sonora Odd Fellows didn’t realize there was such a need to cover unpaid lunch accounts. She said if there’s another school that has the same needs, the Sonora Odd Fellows would definitely be open to doing it again.

“The Odd Fellows mission originally included educating orphans,” Dambachar said. “So we continue to look for opportunities today to carry on that tradition, helping with education.”

Last year the Sonora Odd Fellows started giving scholarships for students going to trade schools, as well as for students pursuing academics at colleges and universities, Mcgettigan said.

“The Odd Fellows have blue collar roots,” Mcgettigan

said. “We want to honor students going into trades, workers who are blue collar, as well as students going to college.”

Independent Order of Odd Fellows Sonora #10, chartered in 1853, is one of the oldest Odd Fellows lodges in California.

“We have about a dozen members,” Dambacher said. The current elected leader of the group is 21 years old. He joined the Sonora Odd Fellows when he was 19. Members of IOOF Sonora #10 range in age from their late teens to their 70s.

“We’re always reaching out for new members of any age to come up with ideas to help the community,” Dambacher said.

Last year Sonora Odd Fellows and The Sonora Foundation spent about $7,000 to help 14 couples who otherwise couldn’t afford to attend prom. Donations

covered the costs of hair, nails, makeup and dresses for the girls, and tuxedos and gift corsages for the boys, as well as a reception, dinners at Emberz, and prom tickets.

Members of the Sonora Odd Fellows plan to present the check for $1,322.75 to the Jamestown School District board at the board’s next meeting, 6 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 18 at 18299 Fifth Ave. in Jamestown.

Historians say the Independent Order of Odd Fellows is a non-political and non-sectarian international fraternal order, founded in Baltimore, Maryland in 1819 and based on an earlier Order of Odd Fellows dating to 1730 in London, England.

In September 1851, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows became the first fraternity in the United States to include men and women. Members of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows promote reciprocity and charity.