A 5-year-old girl sold cookies and cocoa to pay off the meal debts for more than 100 of her fellow classmates — and now she wants to do even more.
When Katelynn Hardee — a kindergartner at Breeze Hill Elementary School in Vista, California — overheard the parent of one of her classmates saying she was having financial trouble, she knew she had to do something.
That’s when the kind kindergartner came up with the idea of selling treats to raise money for the families of her classmates who needed financial help, and she spent a recent Sunday making and selling cocoa, cookies and cider.
Katelynn and her mother, Karina, then donated $80 to the school to help pay off the meal debt of 123 students at her elementary school.
According to a 2019 report from the School Nutrition Association, 75 percent of reporting school districts had unpaid student meal debt. Most of the districts that reported having students with lunch debt had a low prevalence of free or reduced-price meals available.
The average unpaid student meal debt per district amounted to $3,400, the association found. Debt totals were reported from as little as $10 to as much as $500,000.
Katelynn now wants to help other students in her school district settle their lunch debts and is planning to host another treat stand at her school to raise funds.
“It’s all about kindness.” her mother said. “ With everything that’s going on in the world, we just need a little bit more kindness out there.”