Sign the petition: No 8-year-old should have personal debt obligations

Friend, Sen. John Fetterman is right: ‘School lunch debt’ is a term so absurd that it shouldn’t even exist. [Let’s make lunch debt a thing of the past. Sign your name to become a grassroots co-sponsor of the School Lunch Debt Cancellation Act.]( [SIGN THE PETITION]( There are over [30 million children in the U.S.]( who can’t afford their school meals and the national public school meal debt is a whopping $262 million a year. Meanwhile, child poverty in the United States more than doubled last year when pandemic-era relief programs expired; the average household income declined; and corporations inflated prices on basic goods. Democratic Sens. John Fetterman, Sheldon Whitehouse and Peter Welch introduced the School Lunch Debt Cancellation Act to ease the financial burden on working families. When passed, it would direct the USDA to pay for all debts owed to schools for lunch or breakfast programs. Outrageously enough, we'll have an uphill battle getting the bill through Congress. Millions of students are [forced to choose]( between going hungry and going into debt to their school cafeteria just because their families can’t afford to pay for school lunches. The entire situation is beyond absurd – it’s just cruel. Meanwhile, our government could wipe out that debt and provide meals for our children with just the stroke of a pen. [Sign the petition: Cancel school lunch debt NOW!]( [SIGN THE PETITION]( Keep fighting, Monique Teal, Daily Kos Daily Kos needs you now more than ever We are falling behind our projections for two of our three major revenue streams: advertising and list building. This means that at this moment, we need to rely more and more on donations from the Daily Kos community to make ends meet. Can you chip in $5 right now to help Daily Kos keep fighting? [Donate $5]( If you wish to donate by mail instead, please send a check to Daily Kos, PO Box 70036, Oakland, CA, 94612. Contributions to Daily Kos are not tax deductible. Sent via [ActionNetwork.org](. To update your email address, change your name or address, or to stop receiving emails from Daily Kos, please [click here](.