Grim news reports about a 12-year-old Utah boy who recently died of severe malnutrition struck a nerve with Silicon Slopes CEO Clint Betts.
One of the more gut-wrenching details was the account of a school nutrition worker who had observed the boy casually toss his water cup into a trash can and then dig through the refuse for something to eat. The worker decided she would pay for his lunch out of her own pocket.
“The part that really struck a chord with me was the cafeteria worker paying for his lunch after seeing him eating out of the garbage can. I grew up in a poor family where I got the free lunch, reduced lunch, we even did the summer lunch, for whatever reason,” said Silicon Slopes CEO Clint Betts.
Recently, Betts tweeted that Silicon Slopes, a nonprofit organization led by Utah tech and business leaders, is partnering with the Utah Lunch Debt Relief Foundation “to eliminate school lunch debt in Utah once and for all.”
Moving forward, “@siliconslopes is donating all net proceeds from individual and corporate memberships to the Utah Lunch Debt Relief Foundation. All of it. From this day forward,” Betts tweeted.
The foundation was founded earlier this year, when a Utah father, DJ Bracken, learned that kids across the state were facing $2.8 million in collective school lunch debt. He requested a list of school lunch debts in each Jordan School District elementary school and began to pay them off, one by one, according to the foundation’s website.
The Utah Lunch Debt Relief Foundation’s mission is to eliminate school lunch debt in Utah. “We continue to pay off Utah lunch debts school-by-school, while pursuing a permanent solution to the accumulation of debt,” its website states.
Earlier this year, Rep. Tyler Clancy, R-Utah, proposed a different tack to addressing school lunch debt. He proposed that the Utah Legislature appropriate $4 million to eliminate the reduced-price meal category for school students and provide the meals to students from household incomes at no cost.
According to Clancy’s presentation to the Public Education Appropriations Subcommittee, school lunch debt more commonly occurs among households that qualify for reduced-priced meals.
“Families right now that used to be middle class are struggling more now than ever, I think, because of inflation and specifically the increased cost of food,” he said.
Clancy said the $4 million investment in an overall $7 billion-plus public education budget would enhance that appropriation. “If kids are hungry, they’re not going to be able to get the full breadth of that education. We think this is a great way to take that on,” he said.
The request was not funded but Clancy said at the time that he would continue to work on the issue.
School nutrition programs are largely subsidized by the federal government. In Utah, a portion of the state liquor tax also supports the programs.
Some states provide free school meals to all students regardless of income. According to the Food Research and Action Center, California, Maine, Colorado, Minnesota, New Mexico, Vermont, Michigan, and Massachusetts have all passed free Healthy School Meals for All policies.
The Food Research Action Center is a private, nonprofit organization primarily funded by the Department of Health and Human Service.
The school lunch debt in Utah is approximately $2.8 million. Earlier this year, Utah lawmakers appropriated $29.4 billion for fiscal year 2025 for the state’s operating and capital budget.
“The truth is, the government’s budget is enormous, and we’re talking about $2.8 million to make sure that no kid gets turned away as a stigma, right? This money could be found. But regardless, we’ll just raise the money and pay these things off. If we have to do a perpetual fund to do it, we’ll do it,” Betts said.