STAFFORD, Va. (AP) — The holidays came early for some Virginia families struggling to pay school lunch debt.
Three Virginia pastors used more than $17,000 from their church’s budget to pay off meal debt at two local school systems.
“It seemed like a good idea, (but) we didn’t know if there was a need because no one ever seems to talk about this,” said the Rev. Jerry Williams, a pastor at Mount Ararat Baptist Church. “So we called the school systems. And gosh, wow, was there a need.”
Williams, the Rev. Brian Bennett and the Rev. Andrew Segre gave $10,500 to Stafford County Public Schools and close to $7,000 to Spotsylvania County Public Schools, which wiped out balances across the district, news outlets reported.
