Many generous individuals have stepped up recently to help some school children settle their lunch debts.

It's estimated that 76 percent of U.S. school districts have school lunch debt; hundreds of thousands of dollars has been mounting.

• School lunches are estimated to cost around $2.35.
• Some kids have had to wear stickers or wristbands signaling that they owe lunch debt
• For kids who do owe money, many have been shamed for it and refused meals, even if they owed as little as .15cents.
• Kids have been refused to attend field days if they owe lunch debt
• Parents of children who owe lunch debts have had to face collections agencies coming after them.

Thanks to an investigation from a rapidly growing chain of salad restaurants known as Sweetgreen, they previously decided to research school lunches in the U.S. and around the world. They put together some images to compare what the lunches look like and above you can see an example of an American school lunch.

Some states have now passed new rules, saying kids can no longer be shamed or refused a lunch if they owe lunch debt. However, the changes have backfired drastically, with the owed debts growing rapidly after the new changes were implemented.

To try and help solve the problem, many generous people have stepped forward voluntarily to offer what they can. GoFundMe efforts have been launched, seeking to cover lunch debts around the country and those campaigns have managed to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for lunches in cities like Seattle, Spokane, Salt Lake City, Tacoma, and other regions.

One dad alone campaigned and raised the funds to cover the lunch debts at 99 different schools.

Another anonymous individual stepped forward and settled the debts for a school in Claremont, giving them $30,000 to help feed the children.

For a veteran from Indiana who had been facing collections agencies because he too owed money for school lunch debt for his children, he received an outpouring of support once his story went public.

One generous entrepreneur from North Dakota also wants to help, by selling ugly festive sweaters this holiday and funneling that money toward unpaid lunch fees for schools in the region.

There are many people out there who are generous and willing to help when there is a need, they are just waiting for the right cause to prompt them to consider getting involved and for a cause like this, it's nice to see that so many people want to make sure that the kids are being fed while they attend school.

Pics:
[pic 1 - pixabay]
pic 2 - techflourish
pic 3 -Sweetgreen
pic 4-ubisafe