Robin Kindt can see the local grade school across the street from her mini-mart.

She can hear class bells ring at Keno Elementary School and listens to students playing at recess at the southern Oregon school. So she knew she had to act when she learned that some of those young people could possibly go hungry because of the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak.

About 134,000 people in Oregon have applied for unemployment benefits since mid-March; there have been 16.8 million job losses nationally in that time. When job losses started mounting, Kindt saw a comment from a local parent worrying on Facebook FB, -0.89% about possibly missing meals in light of school closures. A day later, Kindt talked to a customer about it. “Bam! A light went off.” She decided to take action.

With schools closed, Keno’s school district is now offering its students three breakfasts and three lunches on Tuesdays and Fridays. The other days, families who rely on school food are on their own. More than two-thirds of students who regularly eat school lunches depend on a free or reduced-price school lunch as a main source of their daily nutrition, the Associated Press reported.

Kindt wants to be a backstop for the kids and families who come into her store, Keno’s only gas station. “I know who struggles, who doesn’t. My heart broke. My heart just broke,” said Kindt, 62, a mother and grandmother who said she’d be “devastated” if her own kids missed a meal.

“ ‘How dare someone like me allow a child to go without food when I could eat. I couldn’t do it.’ ” — Robin Kindt, owner of Klamath River Gas

“How dare someone like me allow a child to go without food when I could eat. I couldn’t do it,” Kindt said.

So Kindt did something about it: she put $75 on a gift card to pay for student lunches at her store, Klamath River Gas. She later added another $40. Other residents in the small town did something too — they’ve chipped in more than $500 so far.

Sometimes customers have contributed by rounding up their tab on gas. Sometimes people drop off $20 bills and sometimes it’s been kids bringing in several dollar bills. The card’s paid for some 35 meals so far, Kindt said. “That’s what we do out here in Keno. We are a tight-knit community.”

The rules are simple, Kindt explained. The child has to be present with their parent in the store and they can get a meal that costs up to $5. That can pay for food like Lunchables KHC, -2.93% , fruit, cheese, a burrito or a hamburger.

Kindt has broadened the scope so senior citizens and cash-strapped residents can use the card to pay for food necessities. Again, the rules are clear: the money’s for basics like milk, eggs, juice and bread.

‘The best and the worst’

Keno is part of Klamath County, population 68,238. The median income was $43,522 in 2018, according to Census numbers. That’s almost $17,000 less than the national median income.

Like elsewhere, Oregon’s been hit hard by the outbreak. The state has 1,321 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 44 deaths, according to the Oregon Health Authority statistics as of Friday. Klamath County accounts for 20 of those cases, but no deaths.

Kindt was inspired in part by the gift card that she and other Keno residents funded in the summer of 2019 to show their gratitude to firefighters fighting nearby forest fires. (The firefighters used the elementary school’s parking lot as a staging ground and campsite.)

Donations to the card have been steady. The latest contribution, $10, came on Monday.

“ ‘Whatever we can do to support kids and families is important at this time.’ ” — Jill O’Donnell, chairs of Klamath County School District’s Board of Education

Any and all help was welcome, said Jill O’Donnell, who chairs the Klamath County School District’s board of education. “Whatever we can do to support kids and families is important at this time,” she told MarketWatch.

The district has almost 7,000 students and 20 schools. It covers 6,000 square miles, making it Oregon’s geographically largest district, O’Donnell said. “A lot of people, including school districts, are going above and beyond to make sure kids are fed, safe and educated.”

Others are finding ways to donate, even in tough times. The average donation to all nonprofits on the Charity Navigator platform is $113 right now, according to Kevin Scally, chief relationship officer at the charity rating service. That sum is a 25% increase on donation amounts at the same time period last year, he noted.

Others see Keno resident’s actions from a different point of view.

“ ‘That story, in a nutshell, represents the best and worst of America’s response to this problem.’ ” — Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America

“That story, in a nutshell, represents the best and worst of America’s response to this problem,” said Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America.

The generosity of Kindt and fellow residents was the highlight, while government efforts were “too slow and too little,” he said.

In 2018, while the stock market was high and unemployment rates were low, 26 million adults and 11 million children lived in “food insecure” households, according to a USDA report. In real life, “food insecure” means people are forced to ration food or choose between food and other necessities, Berg explained.

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act, federal legislation passed just before the $2.2 trillion stimulus bill, includes money so the families of kids with free and reduced lunches can get up to $646 a month for food, Berg said.

But the USDA has to approve each state’s plan for the money, Berg said. The agency signed off on Michigan’s plan Thursday, making it the first state with an approved plan. The USDA said it’s working with several other states on the technical details of their submitted plans.

“Nothing is dealing with the magnitude of this crisis,” Berg said.

“USDA is maximizing our services and flexibilities to ensure children and others who need food can get it during this Coronavirus epidemic,” Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue said in a statement. “This is a challenging time for many Americans, but it is reassuring to see President Trump and our fellow Americans stepping up to the challenges facing us to make sure kids and those facing hunger are fed.”

Kindt agreed that the gift card’s context showed the good and the bad.

Excessive regulations and bureaucracy can sometimes spoil an obvious opportunity to help, as Kindt sees it. Kindt was shopping at a grocery store this week and remembered seeing a clerk refuse to sell overripe bananas to a customer who said she could use them for banana bread or banana pancakes.

Kindt, who hates to see wasted food, talked to the manager, who said he needed to be careful about what he sold. For Kindt, that was caution to a fault. “This is the kind of thing that really upsets me right now.”

‘Week to week right now’

It’s gone quiet at Kindt’s store, just like it has at the school across Highway 66.

Kindt usually would make between $700 and $800 per shift on in-store sales, which are separate from the gas sales.

Now, Kindt said she gets excited about anything $400 and above. But there are still good days, like one shift earlier this week that pulled in $1,100 — a haul she attributes to a combination of nice weather in the 70s and customers with cabin fever looking to get out.

Kindt has owned the store for 15 years. She has six employees and applied for a potentially forgivable small business loan in the stimulus bill’s $350 billion Paycheck Protection Program. She’s waiting to hear the results, and, meanwhile, wondering if she’ll need to go to one shift or temporarily close.

“My business is getting slow, I will not deny it. … We’re going week to week right now,” she said. But she says she’ll find a way. “I believe God has an answer for everything.”