AP – As the school year drew to a close, Daken Kramer worried about children who owed money for meals at his school. So the enterprising fifth grader decided to do something about it.
Daken, 11, posted a video last month challenging friends, family, and even strangers and businesses to pay off the meal debt at Thomas Ultican Elementary School in Blue Springs, a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. He was apparently convincing: He raised USD7,370 – more than double his original goal of USD3,500. It paid off all the debt at his school and provided nearly USD4,000 to reduce meal debt at Blue Springs High School, as well.
Daken, in a phone interview on Wednesday, said he simply wanted to do something nice.
“It was my last year,” the soon-to-be middle schooler said. “I just wanted to do something kind to say thank you to the school.”
Nearly 30 per cent of the 15,000 students in the Blue Springs School District are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches, according to state data. Even at that lower cost, some students at the district’s 20 schools can’t keep up. Overall, the district has a meal debt of around USD235,000.
Nationally, the School Nutrition Association’s 2024 survey of member school districts found that the median district meal debt as of November was USD5,495, up from USD5,164 a year earlier. The survey found that debt amounts can reach up to about USD1 million for some districts.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, federal aid provided free school meals nationwide, but that ended in 2022. Daken’s mom, Vanessa Kramer, said she learned that the pandemic-era programme was the only time some students in the district got breakfast.
“That kind of stuck with me because I grew up in a food-insecure home,” Vanessa Kramer said. “There were a lot of times that even as a high schooler, I was getting a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”
