NCSD food service donation challenge meets its goal in less than a week

Rick Vernon, a longtime Cardinal, challenged the community to make donations to the Newton school district’s more than $21,000 lunch balance deficit, and in less than a week it was fully paid off. The district announced the update to the food service donations on Aug. 16 and thanked the generous donors.

The challenge was introduced on Aug. 9 and persists until the first day of school on Aug. 23. Vernon said he would match any food service donations during that time. Newton Community School District’s initial post about the challenge garnered 146 shares. Over the weekend, $1,350 in donations were made.

In a Facebook post from Vernon the day it was announced the school district was in the black, he encouraged others across the state to mirror his challenge for other school districts who may also have large deficits. He also mentioned he would appear on KCCI and WHO Channel 13 to talk about the challenge.

“Private citizens in every community can step up to help their schools,” Vernon said in his social media post. “Leaders, please call the superintendents and do a community challenge in your town. We don’t need government to solve all our local problems! Thanks to all the contributors! It’s for the kids.”

Newton News spoke with Vernon shortly after the donation goal was met. He hopes that if other community leaders across the state step up to form a similar challenge that state lawmakers take notice and consider paying off the bad lunch balance debts of all school districts, or not require any more of these challenges.

“Kids and parents in Iowa wouldn’t have to pick up the balance and we wouldn’t need to do this challenge,” he said. “Hopefully enough information going out there will get it to the point where somebody like Kim Reynolds or one of her people call me and we can discuss what they need to do to help long term.”

Vernon acknowledged that paying off the lunch balance deficit is a short-term fix.

“I can do this again annually,” Vernon said, “but it’s a matter of I’d rather have the state with all their surplus take care of this issue because I don’t think it’s really all that much. I mean, it is significant. It is in the millions. But as far as the state budget it’s not a huge amount.”

To Vernon, it would solve a lot of problems for families who may not meet free or reduced lunch requirements but still struggle to pay the deficit. Families should not have to be taken to small claims court over meals they could not pay for, he added, which is what the Newton school district was doing.

Newton News reported in May that Newton Community School District had taken families to small claims court over overdue lunch balances and equipment/textbook fees. The district pursued 22 cases this year. Fees ranged from as low as $451 to as high as $1,741.

School meals have made a number of headlines recently. It was reported that all Des Moines Public Schools students will be offered free meals for the third consecutive year. In Minnesota, legislators passed the Free School Meals for Kids Bill, which has caught the attention of Iowans.

Even more so following Vernon’s challenge in Newton.

“I think we can spread the word around the state and get it taken care of by private individuals this year, but for next year and ongoing in the future we ought to have the state look at it,” Vernon said. “It’s not a huge amount of money. It helps education. It helps the administrators … It just solves a lot of problems.”