My name is DJ, and I am the executive director of the Utah Lunch Debt Relief Foundation. Which is a fancy way of saying that I spend a lot of time thinking about how much money Utah school kids owe for their lunches: $2.8 million.
That’s $2,800,000 that kids — kids — owe for the “crime” of eating lunch at school. It’s a number that makes you want to do something, or maybe just lie down and stare at the ceiling until the feeling passes. But it doesn’t pass for me, and probably not for you, either, if you’ve read this far.
Now, I could tell you a story about a particular kid, a little girl, maybe, with pigtails and a patched-up backpack, who couldn’t afford lunch and knew her account was in debt. I could describe the shame on her face, the growling in her stomach, and the way she pretended to be fascinated by the pattern of the linoleum floor. And it would be a true story, because there are thousands of those stories in Utah, each one a tiny tragedy unfolding in a brightly lit cafeteria. But one story makes the problem seem small.
The problem isn’t small. It’s $2.8-million-big. It’s a systemic problem that says something ugly about who we are and what we value. It implies we’re okay with kids going hungry or sliding into debt so we can balance budgets and preserve bureaucratic efficiencies. In short, it suggests we’ve lost our minds.
I know what some people are thinking. They’re thinking, “It’s the parents’ responsibility to feed their kids. Why should the rest of us pay?”
In an ideal world, every parent could provide three nutritious meals a day. But we don’t live in that world. We live in a world where jobs disappear, where illnesses strike, where one big bill can push a family over the edge.
So, what do we do? First, we acknowledge that this is a big, hairy problem. Second, we stop blaming the kids and parents. They’re not the culprits; they’re victims of a system that’s failing them. Third, we open our wallets, our hearts, and our minds. Donate. Volunteer. Advocate. We let elected officials know that hungry kids are not acceptable collateral damage. We speak up. We make noise. We create change.
Because, yes, $2.8 million is a lot of money. But it’s also just a number — a proxy for our failure to care for the most vulnerable among us. And like any number, it can be changed. It can be reduced, eliminated, wiped from the ledger entirely. All it takes is effort, compassion and a collective decision that enough is enough.
No more lunch debt. No more hungry kids. That’s the foundation we need to build. And I, for one, am ready to start laying bricks.