Pledges of Food, Help Flood School : Hunger: About 250 volunteers take action after learning that a quarter of students at Edgewood Middle School in West Covina are coming to class undernourished.

West Covina’s Edgewood Middle School, profiled in a Times story Sunday as an example of a school that does not serve federally funded breakfasts to low-income students, was deluged by more than 250 phone calls Monday as people from as far away as Santa Barbara offered to donate their time and money to ensure that Edgewood students don’t go to school hungry.

Meanwhile, the West Covina Unified School District’s board, which has not applied to the government for breakfast funds, said it will consider whether to do so at a Dec. 13 board meeting.

In its Sunday article, The Times detailed how teachers nationwide are grappling with an increasing number of students who come to class hungry, crippling their chances to learn. School officials estimate that one in four children come to Edgewood undernourished.

The Times story outlined how schools have failed to offer one available remedy: school breakfast, a federal entitlement program. Currently, 37% of the 13.6 million low-income children who get a subsidized lunch also eat a morning meal at school. Edgewood and the West Covina district’s 10 other schools do not offer the morning meal to low-income students.

“There has to be action taken to make sure children are fed. We want to get a resolution to this,” said West Covina Mayor Bradley McFadden, who said he has asked the city manager to look into whether the city can press the school district to start a breakfast program. “The goal is to make sure students have an environment they can learn in and aren’t hungry,” McFadden said.

Meanwhile, citizens took matters into their own hands at Edgewood on Monday. One parent offered to take hungry families to a supermarket and stock them with food staples. Four offered to adopt hungry families until they can get on their feet. Two families pledged 55 food baskets. Twenty turkeys arrived, with more on the way. Some simply donated cash. The local Kaiser Permanente hospital offered to permanently stock the school nurse station with snacks. And on Monday afternoon, another family dropped off 300 pounds of rice and promised to bring 30 turkeys to go with the rice Wednesday.

“I am enormously touched by the outpouring of concern,” said Assistant Principal Amelia Esposito. “They ask me, “How much can I give? This is wrong. Children shouldn’t be hungry in this country.’ ”

School board President Mike Spence said that, on philosophical grounds, he still opposes a government-paid school breakfast program for children. Some conservatives oppose the programs, calling them anti-family and a usurpation by schools of a parent’s responsibility. Spence said he nonetheless believes that “there is probably a majority on the board” who would approve breakfast funds. He said board members had received an informational memo about breakfast programs two weeks ago.

If such a measure passed, Spence said, “we would be allowing parents to shirk their responsibilities. And we would send a message to kids that is demeaning. We would say: ‘Your parents can’t take care of you, so we have to.’ Some of these parents are on dope. They should be reported to social services (agencies) for neglect, as required by law.”

Spence said an individual he declined to identify has offered to collect donations and have volunteers serve breakfast to students at Edgewood rather than rely on the government to address a social problem.