Children hurt by grim economy
Posted 08/03/09
Ashley Wilson, Asheville Citizen Times
ASHEVILLE – This story originally published on November 18, 2008.
In Buncombe County schools, there are more than 11,400 students who receive breakfast and lunch for free or at a reduced rate. For many of those students, the only time they get to eat is when they are sitting in their school cafeterias.
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With higher numbers of low-income and homeless students this school year, area schools and students are beginning to feel the effects of a failing economy as the financial situation for many local families continues to worsen.
Over the past four years, Buncombe County has seen a more than 22 percent increase in the number of students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunch – a designation that determines students from low-income families.
The critical and often basic needs of many of these students is now causing nonprofit organizations, school counselors and parents to reach out in ways they never have, or in amounts they never imagined.
“At this point of the year, the needs seem to be more intense things, like students not coming to school for several days and the phone has been turned off, and we need to do a home visit,” said Sharon Fish, dropout prevention specialist with Buncombe County Schools. “Then when we get to the home, the power has been turned off.
“I am seeing it’s no longer generational poverty. It’s families that have always been middle class, and those kids are going to teachers and counselors asking for help.”
At the beginning of each school year, students receive paperwork their parents can fill out to qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. Students who are in foster care, whose family is on food stamps or whose household income falls below certain levels are eligible.
The students who receive the services are kept confidential. Instead of handling money, at most schools students have a number or card they can swipe to get meals. Only the child nutrition department knows the students who receive free or reduced-price lunch. The regular price for an elementary or middle school student’s lunch is $1.75. For high school it’s $2. Students on reduced-price lunch pay 40 cents.
A family of four would have to make $27,560 or less to receive free lunch or no more than $39,220 for the reduced rate. Because of the downturn in the economy, more local families are falling within those income levels. More than 44 percent of students in Buncombe County and Asheville City get their meals for free or at a reduced price.
“Really and truly, the only thing that’s consistent in these students’ lives is school,” said Jill Castelloe, dropout prevention specialist for Buncombe County Schools. “I hear that all the time, ‘What got you to school this morning?’ ‘I had a meal waiting on me.’ It’s no longer taboo. The number of kids we are getting is pages and pages long.”
Housing a serious need
The economy is not only affecting parents’ ability to feed their children, but it is also affecting their ability to house their families. Both Asheville City and Buncombe County schools have seen increases in the number of homeless students this school year.
Only four months into the school year, there are already 100 homeless students in Buncombe County, and officials are not expecting things to slow down. Last school year, the total number of homeless students was about 130.
Officials in Asheville City also said they have seen big increases in the number of families applying for services for homeless students.
“I think the economy does play a role in it,” said Emily Walters, homeless liaison for Buncombe County Schools. “A lot of people who were doing OK a few years ago, one thing happened that put them over the edge. I’m seeing more teens who have gotten kicked out of the house, and I think finances have escalated situations, and other family friends would have taken them in, but it’s too much of a burden now.”
Walters said she usually works with homeless families who have children in the school district, but recently she has seen an increase in displaced teenagers, often with more dire situations.
When students become homeless, they are typically referred to Walters by schools, social workers, school counselors, principals or other agencies. She works with the students to fulfill their most immediate needs, whether it’s getting them into a shelter, signing them up for free lunch, buying them school supplies or clothes or transporting them to their school.
Under the McKinney-Vento Act, homeless students are permitted to stay in their school of origin no matter where they currently live, a regulation that often helps the student to stay on track academically but can be difficult for school districts. Walters can also work to get the student extra academic support and with their permission to inform their teachers of their situation.
“It certainly is a distraction for them,” said David Thompson, director of student services for Buncombe County Schools. “It’s hard to be completely focused on academics when your concern is about family issues and financial needs and where you are going to be living and those kind of things.”
Community help
With such increases in the amount of students needing assistance, community members and agencies are reaching out to make sure that students’ basic needs are taken care of even if their parents are having a hard time.
Since MANNA FoodBank started the MANNAbundance Back Pack Program in 2005, the number of participants has grown from 60 students to 1,672. This school year will easily be the program’s biggest. The program gives students who typically get their only meals at school 5-7 pounds of food to take home over the weekend.
Students in 12 Western North Carolina counties and 63 schools get apple sauce, peanut butter, granola bars, ramen noodles, pop top ravioli, macaroni and cheese, canned fruit and vegetables.
All the food is placed in brown paper grocery bags and delivered to the schools from MANNA by a volunteer. School counselors identify the students in need and discreetly place the bags of food into their backpacks.
The economy has not only made it harder for families to feed their children but to clothe them as well. In September alone, Eblen-Kimmel Charities had 162 students request vouchers in the clothing program, a huge increase said Executive Director Bill Murdock. The program allows students who need clothing to go shopping with a school counselor.
Since the beginning of the school year, Murdock said Eblen-Kimmel has also seen rises in its children’s pharmacy, mental health, snack and vision programs. In addition to nonprofit agencies, community members and churches are also stepping up to help children during these hard times.
When Diana Butler began seeing children at her son’s school, Bell Elemenrary, without socks in the winter, she was moved to help. Butler, whose son is a fifth-grader at the school, began the Family to Family program, bringing together seven churches in the school’s community. The program acts as a safety net for families at Bell Elementary, filling in where agencies cannot.
The program has already held sneaker-and-sock, school supply, peanut butter and book drives for the school.
If a child has a need that cannot be met by a local agency, the school will contact Family to Family. A church will then get in touch with the student’s family to see how it can help.
“When I realized at Bell Elementary, we have five families and four kids were going home every day to food and going to basketball and ballet, and if they were sick, they had insurance,” Butler said. “But that fifth kid was going home hungry with no food and didn’t have basketball. That’s when I got involved.”
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