Nathan Underneath, owner of Moving Pictures Tattoo Cinema, was surprised when he learned how many students were on the Free and Reduced Lunch program at Warsaw Community Schools (WCS).
When he learned how much debt students and their families had for school lunches, he decided to create a fundraiser to help pay some of that off.
“The fundraiser is to raise money for the debt that has been incurred by the families that are on the Free and Reduced Lunch program for Warsaw Community Schools,” he said in an interview Friday afternoon.
Underneath had read an out-of-state newspaper article about a “local hero” who donated money to school lunch funds. He wanted to do something similar so he checked to see if there was a need at local schools.
“And I, honestly, had thought maybe like 5% of our kids might be on the program, and then it turns out there’s 50% of our kids are on the program,” he said.
Stacie Light, director of food services for WCS, said the school district’s free and reduced lunch percentage is documented at over 46%. That includes 45.5% who are economically disadvantaged and 1.9% who are homeless, according to a statistic provided by WCS Superintendent Dr. David Hoffert. The student population at WCS is about 6,700.
Light said WCS has had a school lunch Angel Fund since 2017 to help bring down student lunch debt. The money in that fund rolls over from year to year, Hoffert said, because they know that’s an ongoing need.
Recently, Underneath said he toured the Milford Food Bank to see if there were volunteer opportunities there. He met a Wawasee principal there who told him that 75% of his students were on the lunch program.
Underneath made some contacts to find out more about how the Free and Reduced Lunch programs work. He was referred to Light who explained to him the program is federally funded through the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The USDA puts restrictions on the program, like what types of food may be served.
“But the budget is mostly not for lunches, it’s for breakfast, and so that is in efforts to increase attendance because parents know that if they get their kids to school on time, they don’t have to feed them,” he said. “So all kids, regardless of what socio-economic status they are, all kids get free breakfast. That leaves a lot less money for the lunch program though, but kids are not going to be denied food, even after that money runs out. So the families that are on the program start running up a tab.”
Hoffert confirmed WCS never turns any student away for lunch regardless of their ability to pay.
Originally, Underneath planned to sponsor a few families by just anonymously paying their lunch tab. Light told him it would be a lot better, and he could help more people, if he donated to the Angel Fund. By donating to that fund, Light could make phone calls and help reduce a family’s lunch debt even further by using money from the fund to match whatever the family was able to pay toward their debt. In that way, more families could be assisted and be encouraged to pay their lunch debt down themselves and not be overwhelmed by the amount.
While someone else had paid off all of Harrison Elementary School’s student lunch debt, halfway through the school year all of the other schools’ negative balance was approximately $13,000, Underneath said Light told him. A reduced lunch is 40 cents.
“So, $13,000 in debt is a lot of lunches and a lot of opportunity to assist. I think I’m a little shocked that there’s that much need or that many families in our community, without knowing that this is an issue,” Underneath said. “As I’ve talked about it, I realized that nobody knows about this or knows that it’s a problem.”
He said raising $13,000 seems like a “very achieveable” goal for the community.
The fundraiser started as an Art Night where Underneath would invite other artists to his downtown Warsaw studio to design food-related tattoos. Then when anyone gets one of those tattoos, the tattoo studio wouldn’t take the profit and all proceeds would go to the school.
There’s another Art Night this Sunday. Today (Saturday) on several forums, Underneath is also releasing a request to other artists around the country to donate their food designs for tattoos. As the tattoos are being designed for the fundraiser, they are being posted on the studio’s Facebook page.
Realizing that the tattoos alone may not raise enough money to meet the $13,000 goal, Underneath decided to scale up the fundraiser.
“I started challenging other local businesses through the Chamber of Commerce and Go Rogue. There have been a few businesses that have stepped up and said they wanted to contribute. Biryani Kitchen wrote a really nice-sized check. And so, by encouraging businesses or encouraging businesses to challenge their employees, people don’t realize that $20 will buy 50 lunches, like that’s very reasonable. If everyone could contribute a little bit, we can knock this problem out quickly,” he said.
Underneath’s son works for Panda Express. His son’s manager had sent out a mass text saying he wanted to do something good for the community and help kids. His son showed his manager a video Underneath had posted about his fundraising plans and the manager got in touch with him.
The manager donated 100 free meal vouchers from Panda Express. Since Underneath can’t give the vouchers to the children, he decided - with the manager’s OK - to give a voucher to each person who donates $20 as a thank-you from Panda Express for helping the feed the kids.
The $20 (or more) donations can be made by stopping in at Moving Pictures Tattoo Cinema, 112 E. Center St., or at The Lab, 120 E. Center St., Warsaw.
Donations can also be made through Venmo at Moving Pictures Tattoo Cinema.
Businesses or individuals who just want to make a donation can write a check to Warsaw Community Schools with Food Services in the memo. Underneath will collect those checks until the end of the fundraiser when all the donations will be presented together to the school district.
The fundraiser was originally going to be until the end of February, but has been extended until the end of April.
For more information and updates, check the Facebook post on Underneath’s personal page, fanpage and the studio’s page. He encouraged people to share the post to their own Facebook pages.
Since opening his tattoo and art studio in downtown Warsaw five years ago despite some opposition, Underneath made the promise to serve the community. He’s done that on a smaller scale but wants to aim bigger to make a bigger impact.
Hoffert said WCS has had other groups in the past donate to help pay off student lunch debt. The donations are always appreciated and help families. Right before the pandemic, WCS saw its highest number of documented Free and Reduced Lunch program participants at over 50%. During the pandemic, the government picked up all the lunch costs.
Light said, “Nathan Underneath could have chosen to donate funds to any charity in the county. What a wonderful blessing to our students that Nathan’s fundraiser chose kids and nutrition as a priority. We have angels and blessings everywhere!”