Montville ― A local cafeteria worker was shopping at Montville Florist a few weeks ago when she told owner Leah Van Ness that high school students here had racked up more than $1,000 in lunch debts.

“That was something that really touched my mom as a Montville Public School student her whole life,” said Van Ness’ daughter Darcy.

“And it really touched my heart as someone who’s really passionate about food security and making sure everybody has access to healthy meals to help get them through the day,” she said.

On Monday, Mohegan tribal employee Ann Landry was hand-delivered a bouquet that would go toward paying off those lunch debts.

When Darcy Van Ness handed Landry a vase containing various flowers, she told her that $13 of the $65 cost would go toward paying down that student lunch debt. Landry said it was a “nice idea” with so many people struggling financially.

Lucy Nolan, policy director for nonprofit East Hartford-based nonprofit End Hunger Connecticut!, said Thursday that families struggling to pay for school lunches is an issue in every town.

“We work a lot with food services, and it’s the same thing around the state,” she said.

Nolan referenced the DataHaven Community Wellbeing Survey from 2022, which showed that food insecurity had doubled statewide in just one year, resulting in a quarter of families who filled out the survey reporting their household had been affected.

Food insecurity is “really harmful” to children's physical and mental health, Nolan added. Besides the physical implications of not eating for a developing child, the stigma attached to not eating lunch can create a damaging social paradigm for kids.

”And it makes kids feel responsible for feeding themselves when they should not need to feel responsible,“ she said.

Hatching the idea

“We were thinking, like, we’re a florist, what can we do?” Darcy Van Ness said.

So she came up with an idea to design a new floral arrangement with the proceeds during February helping pay off the debt.

It’s called Nourish and Bloom, and 20% of the cost of the bouquet goes to student lunch debt.

Held in a vase, the arrangement features Gerber daisies, daisy chrysanthemums, wax flower, solidago and spray roses. Van Ness said she picked flowers that symbolize “joy and happiness.”

“It was important for me to have the bouquet be very cheery and vibrant and bright and celebratory, and to also pick flowers that, at least to me, sort of spoke to like, childhood,” said Van Ness.

But each arrangement is a little different.

“Just ‘cause, you know, each student is unique and different so I wanted to make each of the bouquets a little bit different too,” Van Ness said.

The delivery to Landry was the third one so far, she said. More arrangements had been purchased at the store, which celebrated its 40th anniversary last August.

“We had someone come in who was buying herself Valentine’s Day flowers and she didn’t know what to get, so we were like, oh, we’re doing this thing for February,” she said. “And she was like, that’s perfect, that’s like a nice way to take care of myself and the community.”

Superintendent of Schools Laurie Pallin and Food Services Director Carol Dodson would not say how much student debt there is, but wrote in a statement Thursday that they were “extremely appreciative of Montville Florist’s creative and thoughtful idea to help support students in need who have unpaid lunch debt.”

“Unpaid lunch balances are a growing problem for districts since the COVID-related federal program to provide free meals for all students ended,” they added.

Pallin and Dodson said contributing to the problem is the fact that income guidelines to be eligible for free and reduced-cost meals are based on annual gross income thresholds that are “quite low,” and some families that are struggling to meet monthly expenses still don’t qualify.

According to a chart for eligibility in this town, a family of four must make below $39,000 to qualify for a free meal and $55,500 for a reduced-cost meal.

d.drainville@theday.com