Students raise money to erase school lunch debt
A couple of Pflugerville ISD students started a non-profit, called Pfood Pfairness, where they raise money to erase lunch debt. FOX 7 Austin education reporter Jessica Rivera has details.
AUSTIN, Texas – A couple of Pflugerville ISD students started a non-profit, called Pfood Pfairness, where they raise money to erase lunch debt.
By the numbers:
In the past two years, the non-profit was able to raise about $140,000.
They’ve helped fund 57,000+ hot meals, supported 400+ students every two weeks, and were just named PfISD’s 2025 Partner of the Year—all before graduating.
The backstory:
Their nonprofit was created in response to the district’s alternative lunch policy, which replaced hot meals with cold cheese sandwiches for students with over $6 in debt. With help from their mom (and co-founder), they formed a 501(c)(3) and have been quietly making a big impact ever since.
“I’ve gone through PfISD since kindergarten. So, I have seen students’ lunches be taken away from them. And that’s not fair, especially for the younger kids that don’t even understand why it’s happening,” says John Amador, co-founder of Pfood Pfairness.
In 2023, John and Maxx Amador started a non-profit called Pfood Pfairness. The mission of the non-profit is to ensure every student has access to hot, nourishing meals without worrying about debt or embarrassment.
Pflugerville ISD offers all students in the district free breakfast, but prices of lunch vary whether the student qualifies for a reduced lunch. On average, a lunch plate costs about $3.15.
In 2023, the school district owed more than $180,000 in student lunch accounts across the district.
The district was able to raise the budget up to $30,000 for school lunch debt, but seeing how it continues to increase, the district implemented the charge policy to ensure the debt gets paid off.
Dig deeper:
How the policy works; students with negative account balances of up to seven dollars can still receive reimbursable meals, though entrée items may be replaced. For students with regular accounts, will be charged two dollars when balances are negative. And students with reduced accounts will be charged forty cents.
“What we do is we pay for students’ lunch debt, and whenever they are in lunch debt they are given a cheese sandwich, and our goal is to make sure that they don’t have that and they get a good and hot meal every day, and that they do not get their lunch taken away in front of their peers so that they can have a good time eating at school,” says Maxx Amador, co-founder of Pfood Pfairness.
Since starting this non-profit, they have been able to raise about $140.000, while keeping their grades up.
“We start fundraisers, we attend them, we just go around trying to grow our non-profit as much as possible and keep good grades in school so that we can keep doing this for our community,” says Amador.
Even though John will be graduating soon, he will continue to help keep the non-profit going.
“A good feeling. It’s definitely nice to be able to positively impact the community that I’ve gone to school in for over a decade. So it’s nice to just give back to the community,” says Amador.
What you can do:
Some ways you can help Pflugerville ISD students:
Pay It Forward is designed to place funds on negative food service account balances. If you wish to donate funds to PfISD meal balances, via “Pay It Forward” please contact Geoff Holle at 512-594-0432.
You can also donate to the non-profit, by clicking here.
Pflugerville parents can fill out this application to apply for free and reduced lunch.
The Source: Informatoin from interview with Maxx Amador and reporting by FOX 7 Austin’s Jessica Rivera.