Wyoming Credit Unions Join Together to Pay Off Student Lunch Debt

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – A group of Wyoming credit unions have come together to help fight hunger by paying off student lunch debt for all school districts in the state.

The initiative followed the September launch by the Mountain West Credit Union Foundation of a program called Credit Unions for Hunger Relief (CUHR), a regional community-based hunger relief program helps credit unions impact food insecurity right where they live.

According to the Foundation, the program is open to all credit unions in Wyoming, along with those in Colorado and Arizona, which make up the Mountain West’s region. Credit unions participate by holding fundraisers, donating their funds to the CUHR, and receiving a match up to $1,500. The matched funds are then distributed locally by the funding credit union, the Foundation said.

After the launch of CUHR, Atlantic City FCU CEO Brian Rohrbacher brought forth the idea to partner with Wyoming First Lady Jennie Gordon’s Wyoming Hunger Initiative to help eliminate the student lunch debt for all of Wyoming, the Foundation reported.

That idea brought the two entities together with private donors to accomplish the goal of eliminating student lunch debt, the organization said.

‘Tremendous Stress’

“Student lunch debt is a tremendous stress on the families, schools and communities,” Rohrbacher said. “This initiative gave us a springboard to work together across our entire state to provide much needed relief and to help students in need. We are especially thankful to First Lady Gordon and her team for their collaboration and coordination to help manage the logistics of paying off the debt.”

According to the Foundation, the student lunch debt in the state sat at more than $99,000 before 13 credit unions across the state committed nearly $24,000 to the effort. That amount, coupled with the match from Credit Unions for Hunger Relief brought the total to just more than $43,000. Private donations made up the remainder of the total, the Foundation said.

“We are incredibly grateful to the credit unions in the state who stepped in to help pay off this debt,” First Lady Gordon said. “This represents the impact we can have when we commit to doing something. We may not be able to do everything, but we can all do something. Together, we have the opportunity to make great strides in our state.”

“This initiative is exactly the kind of impact we hoped we’d be able to have when we launched Credit Unions for Hunger Relief,” said Dr. Dan Santangelo, executive director of the Mountain West Credit Union Foundation. “By working together and pooling our money, we’ve been able to make a significant contribution to help offset food insecurity in the state of Wyoming. This is just the beginning, and we are excited to doing much more as this program grows.”

The Participants 

The credit unions that participated in the effort include:

• Atlantic City Federal Credit Union
• Blue Federal Credit Union
• Campco Federal Credit Union
• First Education Federal Credit Union
• Meridian Trust/MT Northstar Foundation
• Pathfinder Federal Credit Union
• Reliant Federal Credit Union
• Sheridan Community Federal Credit Union
• StagePoint Federal Credit Union
• Trona Valley Federal Credit Union
• UniWyo Federal Credit Union
• Western Vista Federal Credit Union
• WyHy Federal Credit Union