Update: Wednesday afternoon, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to add the language of Giddings' lunch shaming bill as an amendment to Senate Bill 1566.
For many school-aged kids, lunch is their favorite time of the day. But for some of their peers, it's the most stressful.
"It is inconceivable that in schools all over Texas children who go through the cafeteria line and discover they have no money in their accounts have their hot lunches taken away and thrown in the trash," said Representative Helen Giddings (D-DeSoto).
The practice is known as lunch shaming. While it may seem morally wrong to throw food away rather than give it to a hungry child, it's legal and it happens.
"One can only imagine the pain, the embarrassment and the damage to the child's self esteem," Giddings said.
Giddings filed House Bill 2159 to end lunch shaming. It would require schools give students a grace period. The student would still be served their hot lunch and the school would have to expand it's efforts to reach out to child's parents and see if the child is eligible for the free or reduced lunch program.
HB2159 made it to the House floor, but was killed by the self-named Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative Republicans. Representative Diego Bernal and Senator Borris Miles tried to add Giddings' bill as amendments to bills they authored, but that proved unsuccessful.
So Tuesday morning, Giddings announced she was turning to the non-profit world.
"We are launching FeedingTexas.org/schools," said Celia Cole, CEO of Feeding Texas.
Feeding Texas is the statewide association of food banks. The group is now taking donations to help eliminate lunch debt.
"We hope to use these donations to work with schools to get them to do the right thing. To adopt the very kind of model policies that would have, that were in House Bill 2159," Cole said.
The goal is to ensure no Texas child goes hungry or has their food taken away.