ANN ARBOR, Mich. – An Ann Arbor student group is raising money to eliminate lunch debt for disadvantaged families.
End the Cycle, a student group at the University of Michigan, is working to combat food insecurity by paying off student lunch debt. The original mission was to address educational disparities faced by students experiencing housing insecurity, but they soon became aware of another issue.
“We realized there’s another barrier to education and education equity,” said Rija Awan, President of End the Cycle. A Tiktok video she saw of a woman offering to pay off student lunch debt inspired her to see what was happening in the Ann Arbor community.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median income in Ann Arbor is $73,276. Despite that, there are still families who experience food insecurity. “There are still a lot of disadvantaged families that don’t qualify for federal aid,” said Zubaida Azeeza.
She reached out to Ann Arbor Public Schools and learned Allen and Carpenter Elementary had a combined student lunch debt of $5,000. They decided to work to eliminate it. They applied for and were awarded grants through the University and raised the rest of the money through fundraising. They plan to deliver the checks to Ann Arbor Public Schools next week.
“Food is really important for the child’s social, physical, and emotional development, so we thought it’d be good to tackle the lunch debt as a start,” said Azeeza.
The group plans to continue raising money in hopes of eliminating more student debt in the future.