School food pantry coordinators worry stigma may be keeping students from obtaining the food they need

Mike Wolanin | The Republic A view of the food bank inside the library at Hauser Jr./Sr. High School in Hope, Ind.. Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023.

COLUMBUS, Ind. — Coordinators for local school’s food pantries are concerned that their distribution numbers indicate some students who could use the help are not receiving food because of concerns about the stigma.

The Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) classifies about 46% of Bartholomew Consolidated School Corp. students as eligible for free or reduced meals 5,344 out of 11,635. For the Flat Rock Hawcreek School Corp., the rate is almost 50%, or 481 out of 972 students.

And yet, local schools’ food pantries aren’t seeing a level of use that reflects these numbers or the fact that, as of December, food prices had increased 10% over the past year, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

During the first semester of the 2022-23 school year, Columbus North’s Bull Dog Pantry saw about 80 to 100 families at each distribution event, which was down from pre-COVID, said art teacher and pantry coordinator Tonya Cruser.

“We got to where we almost were not necessarily having to turn people away, but the shelves were getting really bare by the end of each distribution that we had,” she said. “And then when COVID hit, they had us close completely.”

The pantry reopened at the beginning of the 2021-22 school year, with Cruser saying that she believes it was limited to only Columbus North families initially. It has since moved to serving all BCSC families once again.

Their numbers were sparse at first but have started to pick up some, said Cruser. She said it could be an issue of communication.

However, when she posted about the pantry’s ready-to-cook Thanksgiving dinners, which were available to 120 families, orders filled up in less than 24 hours.

“So I know the word is getting out, but I just don’t know what’s preventing people from coming,” she said. “I don’t think that the demand has gone down, by any means, since grocery prices are higher everything is higher. So I don’t know. We are just kind of stumped.”

Cruser is also aware of the district-level need, having recently led a social media fundraiser to pay off all BCSC lunch accounts with a negative balance. She met her goal and raised just under $6,000 about twice as much as it cost to cover students debts in 2019, by her estimates.

She’s also heard from students who said they didn’t have food all weekend because there was nothing to eat at home.

For more on this story, see Friday’s Republic.