“The last thing kids should worry about today is if there’s a warm lunch for them at school — and the shame they might feel if their classmates realize they can’t afford a school lunch,” Chobani said in a press release, adding that it is striving “to bring attention to the national crisis of food insecurity among students” who attend Warwick Public Schools.<doc-sep>Correction: This piece has been updated to say that Chobani is partially paying off the school lunch debt. It's donating $47,650. (CNN) — The schools in Warwick, Rhode Island, can put those sun butter and jelly sandwiches away: Someone is stepping up to pay the massive lunch debt of some of its students. That “someone” is yogurt company Chobani, which is paying off $47,650 of the $77,000 debt. The donation from Chobani will be used to pay the debts of low-income students, Courtney Marciano, spokeswoman for the city of Warwick, told CNN. Photos: What school lunch looks like around the world PHOTO: Viktor Drachev/TASS/Getty Images Children enjoy lunch, including meat and vegetables, at the Kolno village school in Belarus, a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. Experts say that eating well-balanced meals can benefit a child's cognitive functioning and performance in school. Photos: What school lunch looks like around the world PHOTO: Wang HE/Getty Images Students eat a free lunch, consisting of rice and traditional dishes, at Yuanbao school in Guizhou, a mountainous province in southwest China. Free lunch has been sponsored by the central government since 2011 to improve students' nutrition. Previously, students in poor rural communities either didn't eat or ate only small amounts of food. School feeding programs are ubiquitous across high-, middle- and low-income countries, experts say. Photos: What school lunch looks like around the world PHOTO: Per-Anders Pettersson/Corbis News/Getty Images Children receive a hot meal provided by the humanitarian organization World Food Programme at a rural school in the city of Adama, also called Nazret or Nazareth, in central Ethiopia. Many of the students walk for an hour or two to school every morning, and in some cases, they attend school because of the free meals. Photos: What school lunch looks like around the world PHOTO: Peter Dench/Getty Images Two boys eat fish and chips for lunch in the canteen at Fettes College, a private boarding school in Edinburgh, Scotland. Across countries, how much time children have during their lunch periods can influence how much of a balanced meal they may consume. Photos: What school lunch looks like around the world PHOTO: Sun Ruibo/Xinhua News Agency/Getty Images Students enjoy lunch, including rice and beans, at Hanka Primary School in Nairobi, Kenya. The lunch was provided by the Chinese public welfare project Free Lunch for Children. About 1,100 students at five primary schools in the area benefit from the program. Photos: What school lunch looks like around the world PHOTO: Mohammad Zubair Khan/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images Lunch involves traditional dishes at the Karachi Footpath School in the province of Sindh in Pakistan. The school provides lunch for free to all students before they leave at 1 p.m. Photos: What school lunch looks like around the world PHOTO: Photofusion/UIG/Getty Images A woman serves food to children in a school canteen in Wales. Potatoes, pizza and other dishes are on the menu. Meanwhile, a spotlight has been turned on what children eat for lunch in wake of a rising obesity epidemic among the world's youth. In the United Kingdom, obesity is estimated to affect about one in every five children aged 10 to 11. Photos: What school lunch looks like around the world PHOTO: Education Images/Universal Images Group Editorial//Getty Images Middle school students enjoy lunch outdoors in Lima, Peru. Many children pack lunches brought from home that include juice boxes, fruit and traditional dishes. Photos: What school lunch looks like around the world PHOTO: Toshiyuki Aizawa/Bloomberg/Getty Images A school girl eats lunch, consisting of rice and stew, at Senzoku Elementary School in Tokyo, Japan. In Japan, many students serve each other lunch and enjoy their meals in relaxed environments in the classroom. Photos: What school lunch looks like around the world PHOTO: Nelius Rademan/Foto24/Gallo Images Editorial/Getty Images Students eat lunch at David Brink Primary School in Rustenburg, South Africa, where the number of students benefiting from the school's feeding program jumped from 65 to 185 students within a four-month period in 2014. During that time, many local mine workers and their families were under a lot of financial strain. Photos: What school lunch looks like around the world PHOTO: GEORGES GOBET/AFP/Getty Images A child eats lunch, including couscous, meat and vegetables, at a municipal school in the city of Bordeaux, France. Parents of pupils in the area are more worried about the plastic plates students are eating on than the actual lunch itself. Parents have asked for a return to traditional dishes as they are concerned about the presence of certain chemicals on the plates. Prev Next Warwick Public School caused an uproar earlier this week when it announced that any students who had unpaid balances on their lunch accounts would receive a sunflower seed butter and jelly sandwich until their balance was paid. “As a parent, this news breaks my heart,” Chobani founder and CEO Hamdi Ulukaya said in statement. “For every child, access to naturally nutritious and delicious food should be a right, not a privilege. When our children are strong, our families are stronger. And when our families are strong, our communities are stronger. Business can and must do its part to solve the hunger crisis in America and do its part in the communities they call home.” In addition to paying off the debt, Chobani is also donating cups and yogurt to the community in Warwick. Lunch debt is a nationwide issue Several parents were furious about the school district’s decision to give students with lunch debt a limited midday-meal option. They called it lunch shaming. “Just give the kids lunch,” one parent wrote on the district’s Facebook page. “We already lost a janitor, science teacher, don’t have air conditioning, we can’t spring for a chicken patty for a hungry kid? What if this is their only meal of the day?” The school district later said it was reviewing the policy. There are 1,653 families with outstanding lunch debts, CNN affiliate WJAR reported. Both school lunch debt and “lunch shaming” are huge problems in public schools nationwide. Last April, Rhode Island public schools reportedly faced $300,000 in student lunch debt. However, the practice of singling out students who have unpaid lunch debt has received widespread criticism. In 2017, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in the House and Senate introduced a bill which would outlaw policies that publicize a student’s lunch debt. These practices can include making a student wear a special sticker or wristband, or providing cold sandwiches instead of the usual hot-meal offering. CNN’s AJ Willingham contributed to this story.<doc-sep>
Chobani donated $47,650 to Warwick Public Schools in Rhode Island to help the district pay off a debt accrued by students unable to pay their lunch fees. The yogurt company’s CEO, Hamdi Ulukaya, announced the offer in a Thursday tweet, saying that all students should have access to delicious and nutritious food in school, no matter their ability to pay. WATCH: as a parent, news of #WarwickPublicSchools breaks my heart. every child should have access to natural, nutritious & delicious food, so @Chobani is doing our small part to help pay this debt business must do its part.. our responsibility as members of community. who will join us? pic.twitter.com/6HOTjDE4CX — Hamdi Ulukaya (@hamdiulukaya) May 9, 2019 Chobani will also donate yogurt and cups to the Warwick community, CNN reported Friday. The mayor’s office accepted the company’s donation, according to a Chobani representative, CBS News reported. The district’s total outstanding lunch debt is $77,000. Over 1,600 students in the district of 8,700 students owe money for school lunches, according to NBC News. Chobani’s donation comes after the district received flak for announcing Sunday that students who couldn’t afford to pay their lunch fees would receive sunflower butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch rather than the slew of hot lunch options provided to other students. The district defended the move as a necessary one to prevent it from absorbing more debt it can’t afford, CBS reported Thursday. It also clarified that students are fed well under the policy. “No students are left without a meal under our current policy. Once the student’s access to à la carte items has been shut off, students are provided with a balanced lunch of a sun butter and jelly sandwich … vegetables, fruit, and milk,” Warwick School Committee Chairwoman Karen Bachus explained in a Wednesday statement on Facebook. Restaurant owner Angelica Penta offered to donate $4,000 to help pay for student lunches, but her donation was denied, according to CBS. The district is reconsidering the policy. (RELATED: Vegan Lobbyists File Lawsuits To Ban A Bunch Of Delicious Meat From School Lunches) “After careful review and consideration the policy subcommittee is recommending that the Warwick School Committee allow the students their choice of lunch regardless of their account status,” Bachus said Wednesday. Warwick Public Schools is part of the federally assisted National School Lunch Program, which provides food at reduced or no-cost prices for students who qualify for the program. Chobani did not respond to The Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment in time for publication. Follow Grace on Twitter. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.