Local business owners team up to tackle Pocatello-Chubbuck’s school lunch debt
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POCATELLO – A group of friends and business leaders have launched an effort to wipe away the lunch debt of students in the Portneuf Valley.
On Sunday, Jesse and Mary Baeza and Josh and Hailey Knowlton launched a challenge for the Pocatello-Chubbuck community to completely pay off the total lunch debt for students in Pocatello-Chubbuck School District 25. They launched the initiative with a video posted to Jesse’s account on TikTok , where they gave “every friend, colleague, business partner and neighbor in east Idaho,” 30 days to clear the debt, which totals at $6,100.
And while the challenge has been active for only two days, they believe they’ve already met that goal. Their new goal is to double that amount, and Jesse tells EastIdahoNews.com that they hope to keep going even after that.
“We want this to continue, and we want to (bring) awareness to it. So, us paying (the debt) off is going to solve the problem right, but how can we solve the problem in the future?” Jesse said.
On Saturday, there will be a one-night fundraiser at Wanderlust at 1799 Hurley Drive. Shandi Michelle, a local singer, will be performing and donating all her tips to the school lunch debt challenge. And Wanderlust’s owners have committed to match every dollar of those tips.
Jesse, who’s a residential real estate agent for properties in Pocatello and the surrounding region, started thinking about school lunch debt more and more when he found out that lunches aren’t free in Pocatello-Chubbuck School District 25.
While he and Mary’s children don’t attend school in the district, finding that out still bothered him.
“The school lunch debt, it follows you every semester. It doesn’t matter if you’re in first grade; if you don’t pay that off and you’re in 10th grade, it’ll still be there,” Jesse said.
As Jesse thought about it, he decided he wanted to learn more about the total school lunch debt. He contacted district officials and then sat down for a meeting with them.
Courtney Fisher, spokesperson for PCSD 25, told EastIdahoNews.com that the school lunch debt typically ranges from $9,000 to $11,000. It especially peaks in December, when the holidays add a greater financial burden on families.
Fisher said that in the past, the district has received generous donations from anonymous donors who paid off the total lunch debt.
“(The debt) tends to climb back up. … Our staff works really hard to bring that negative balance back in line, but it’s definitely an ongoing challenge,” Fisher said.
Originally, Jesse thought he and Mary could just pay off the debt, but he realized that wouldn’t bring awareness to the issue or help the situation in the future.
Jesse contacted Josh and Hailey, who are from Knowlton Company, because they’re close friends of his and Mary’s, and because they’re “helping, giving people.”
Together, the two couples decided to launch this challenge to pay off the lunch debt.
“We feel like we have a lot of connections with other businesses. We work directly with banks, we work directly with title companies, and other contractors, so that’s kind of where the idea came. ‘Hey, we can probably set something up, where we can call out the entire community,’” Baeza said.
Fisher said that the district was, and still is, supportive of Jesse, Mary, Josh and Hailey’s challenge.
“We love it when our community steps up to support learners and their families, because we know that that helps us all,” Fisher said.
To keep the process secure, they set up an account called “School District 25 Charity Account” with Idaho Central Credit Union, which will remain open for only 45 days. If the funds in the account are not transferred to the school district by then, the account will close and the funds will be transferred to the school district.
But people can also donate money directly to the school district as well.
“If they want to go directly to the school district … you can cut them a check, and you can drop it off directly to them,” Jesse said.
When the challenge is completed, Jesse, Mary, Josh, and Hailey hope to keep the conversation going and keep the total lunch debt down in the long term.
“(Forming a nonprofit) is something that we’ve looked into. With the response that we got, we thought, ‘well, maybe we could do something more than just a video, and make it into something where we could continue it every single year,’” Baeza said.
But no matter how that goes in the future, the school district is thankful for what they’ve done so far.
“It’s just a powerful reminder that education just doesn’t happen. It’s not what it’s not just what happens in schools. It’s a shared community responsibility, and this effort really exemplifies that perfectly,” Fisher said.