In less than two days, a GoFundMe campaign raised almost enough money to cover the $88,000 in school meal debt accrued in City Schools of Decatur.
The small school district in DeKalb County instead announced an arrangement with the Arby’s Foundation to cover the debt.
Jasmine Crowe-Houston, who started the GoFundMe campaign , is returning the money she raised online to the more than 1,800 donors. She said she offered another way for Decatur to use the money to help students with unpaid meal debt but was rebuffed again.
School lunch debt on the rise after end of free meals in U.S.
It’s not the conclusion Crowe-Houston envisioned, but she’s glad the effort raised awareness about the problem among many who donated to the GoFundMe campaign.
“It’s definitely not the ending that I would have wanted, but it has opened my eyes up to just school lunch and issues as a whole,” she said in an interview Friday. “I would really like to potentially advocate that lunch be free for all students — I think that’s the way to go so this doesn’t happen again.”