Plenty of poor families don't take the money. That's not a judgement, it's just a warning against equating every "poor family" with people who take bags. The money CAN be turned down.
Fortunately, we are only talking about a handful of, say, Top 100 kids that command the bigger numbers. I'm sure some of the others get paid too, but by the time you get down to 3-stars, there's not a lot of "life changing money" floating around.
Most of this stuff is not "life changing" anyhow. Life improving, for a short time, yes.