Did You Know: SchoolCafé Donate Funds Feature

It’s no secret that access to food is a fundamental need for all students, but unfortunately, not all families can afford to pay for school meals. We also know many community members want to look out for each other and help in times of need. To address this, SchoolCafe has a solution to help students get access to meals through the generosity of community members. Account admins may donate their unused funds to the district to pay for other student’s accounts. The district will choose the account the funds will be transferred to and pay off the negative balance. If you would like to take advantage of this feature and make a difference in someone’s life, please refer to the instructions below.
Turn On The Donate Feature
The donate funds option is a system setting which can be enabled by from a SchoolCafe District Admin account.
- Locate Manage Settings
- Search “Donate”
- Toggle on or off the setting, “Allow user to donate funds from a patron account.”
From then on, parents and/or guardians will see the “Donate Unused Funds” option underneath the student profile.
Using The Donate Feature
Once you’ve clicked the “Donate Unused Funds” button from the student profile, a message will pop up that says “I want to donate unused funds from this account to my school to help others pay off negative balances. The request will be handled and processed by your district’s child nutrition office according to their policy.”
Click next, then you will be prompted to enter the amount you wish to donate. You can donate your entire unused balance, or a specific amount. Once you decide, you can click the “Donate Funds” button. Then a review message will pop up confirming your decision, and if it’s correct you can click “Donate Funds” again.
You will receive a confirmation pop up message stating that the request was successfully sent to your district’s child nutrition office. If you have any questions about the request, you may contact their office using contact information found in the Support page of your SchoolCafé account.
If you have any questions about this process, please contact Customer Care.