A Utah man wants to get rid of school lunch debt and says a specialty license plate is the solution
Oct 3, 2025, 3:29 PM
(Utah Lunch Debt Relief Foundation)
(Utah Lunch Debt Relief Foundation)
SALT LAKE CITY — A Utah man says he will use his foundation to pay for 500 car license plates as a way to solve the state’s school lunch debt.
To get a specialty car license plate in the state, there first has to be 500 orders placed. DJ Bracken says this issue is so important, his foundation will cover those costs.
If a person gets one it’s just a $25 renewal fee each year.
“Thousands of people giving $25 a year, it can really add up,” Bracken said.
He credits his friend David Moody who came to him with the idea.
“Frankly a brilliant one,” says Bracken. “Why don’t we make a specialty license plate where all the funds will go to school lunch debt? So that’s exactly what we did.”
As of October 2nd they had 220 orders placed. You can order your own on the UTLDR website.
Bracken says he first started paying off lunch debts when he heard about the over $2 million dollars of school lunch debt there was in the state.
“I thought that was ridiculous. It’s such an unfathomable number. I didn’t even believe it was possible,” says Bracken.
He says he then called his local school to verify the number and they told him not only was that true, in his own local elementary schools they had $88,000 of school lunch debt.
“Even talking about it, still makes me angry to this day,” says Bracken.
He doesn’t believe children in school should have to worry about debt when they should be thinking about math or recess, so he started using his own money to fix the problem.
“I started with Bluffed Elementary with my own money,” says Bracken. “Then shortly after, I thought maybe people would be equally as upset and want to do something about this like me, and I started the foundation.”
On the UTLDR foundation website, you can donate a general amount or choose a specific school to give to. He says part of what motivates him is his daughter and other elementary children being put in that situation.
“Is it the kind of thing where she’s being shamed in front of everyone for not having enough lunch money?” says Bracken. “I mean, as soon as you start thinking about what we’re doing to elementary school kids, it just, it drives you to action.”
Right now Bracken says currently there is about $3.6 million dollars of school lunch debt in the state.
‘If you want to do something in your community that makes a huge difference and costs nothing to do, sign up for this license plate because it’s one way to fund this,” says Bracken. “Might not fix everything, but it could make a huge dent in that yearly debt that’s affecting kids around the state. “
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