MISSION STATEMENT

Our goal at Pfood Pfairness in Pflugerville Schools is to ensure every student has access to hot, nourishing meals without worrying about debt or embarrassment. No child should ever have to choose between hunger and humiliation, especially not due to their family’s financial situation.

As a student-led 501(c)(3) nonprofit fighting food insecurity and inequity in our school district, our goal is to provide families with the necessary funds to reduce the financial burden of the students’ lunch costs, ensuring all students have equal access to equal meals.

Why Help?

The income guidelines to qualify for free or reduced lunch are set at the federal level, with no consideration for location, i.e., the numbers are the same whether you live in Hollywood, CA or Sweetwater, TX. To qualify for free lunch, a family of four must make less than $3,250 per month, and that is before taxes! Additionally, these guidelines do not account for family dynamics, which means a single parent of three, with two children in daycare and one in school, has the same qualifying restrictions as a two-parent household with two teenagers who work. Needless to say, with the rise in cost of living, there is a significant subset of the Pflugerville ISD population that does not qualify for benefits.

The Alternative lunch Policy

If a student has a negative balance, the alternative lunch policy replaces the child’s chosen entrée with a cold cheese sandwich. While this replacement lunch does cost less, the students’ accounts are still charged, and the families accrue more and more debt as the cycle continues.

Pfood Pfairness aims to take a proactive approach. By working directly with affected families or with district and food services staff, we are able to identify and sponsor those children who may need assistance. With the help of our supporters, we are then able to fund student lunch accounts, giving children access to hot meals, eliminating the embarrassment of having their chosen entrée replaced in front of their peers, and preventing negative balances from accruing.

The Benefits are threefold

At the end of every school year, the debt to the food service provider must be paid by PfISD (as required by USDA federal law). If there are negative balances beyond what is anticipated, the district must repay them out of funds originally allocated for student programs and teacher resources meant to enhance educational experiences for all. Helping those families in need, by pre-emptively funding student accounts, not only ensures children have access to hot meals and averts their potential embarrassment, it also prevents an ever-increasing lunch debt that would ultimately fall on the district to repay to the food services company and an outstanding debt for families to repay the district.