Jailhouse Pays!

Prisoners in Kansas have dug into their own pockets to help wipe out thousands of dollars of school meal debt.

Turning their time behind bars into a chance to give children outside a helping hand.

At Norton Correctional Facility in northwest Kansas, a group of incarcerated men discovered that families in their local community were struggling with around $6,000 in unpaid school breakfast and lunch bills.

So they decided to do something about it.

Members of Reaching Out From Within, a programme that encourages incarcerated people to make positive changes and contribute to their communities, organised a fundraiser inside the prison.

And the response was remarkable.

The men raised $3,810, much of it from their own personal funds. Staff from the Kansas Department of Corrections then added another $457, bringing the final donation to an impressive $4,267.

That was enough to cover around 71% of the school district’s outstanding meal debt.

On August 3, nearly 30 men gathered at Norton Correctional Facility to present the money to Corey Roy, superintendent of Norton Community Schools.

But behind the figures was an even more touching reason for their generosity.

Several of the men spoke about experiencing hunger and financial hardship themselves while growing up. They knew what it was like to be a child worrying about something as basic as having enough to eat — and how difficult it could make concentrating at school.

This time, they were in a position to help make sure another child didn’t have to experience the same thing.

Roy said he was moved by the men’s determination to make a positive difference to people they had never met.

The money will help local children get the meals they need to stay fed, focused and ready to learn — while giving the men who raised it an opportunity to give something meaningful back to their community.

They may be serving their time.

But when the bill arrived, the jailhouse paid.