A new Utah license plate directs $30 from every purchase toward paying off school lunch debt, including at Davis County schools.

The "Feed Utah Kids" plate went on sale Tuesday, Oct. 6, at the Utah Division of Motor Vehicles. Each plate costs $53.75. Of that, $30 goes to the Utah Lunch Debt Relief Foundation, and the rest covers the plate, shipping and registration fees. The $30 contribution renews automatically each year when a driver renews registration.

Davis School District is among 23 Utah districts listed on the foundation's public debt tracker, which showed 695 schools carrying a combined $3,485,763 in lunch debt as of March 2026, ABC4 first reported. The tracker does not include every school or district in the state, so the actual statewide total is likely higher. The foundation has said Utah's school lunch debt reached $3.8 million in 2025.

Davis School District's specific share of that debt has not been made public. The foundation's tracker lists districts only when more than half of their schools carry debt above zero, meaning some local schools with smaller balances may not appear.

DJ Bracken, the foundation's founder and executive director, started the nonprofit in June 2024 after reading that Utah schools carried $2.8 million in lunch debt. He paid off the first school, Bluffdale Elementary in Jordan School District, with an $835 personal check and posted the receipt online. Donors sent $10,000 within a month, as reported by Gephardt Daily.

The foundation has since raised more than $300,000 and fully paid off debt at 80 schools. A typical school owes about $2,200.

"We all renew our registration every year, and we pay it on autopilot. … Now that same renewal helps kids," Bracken said Monday, Oct. 12, during National School Lunch Week, which runs Monday, Oct. 12, through Friday, Oct. 16.

The foundation estimates 75 plates can pay off one average school's debt. With more than 500 drivers signed up before the plate launched, that pace could clear about seven schools per year.

The plate is available for cars, trucks and trailers but not motorcycles. It can be personalized with up to six characters. Drivers can order online at dmv.utah.gov, at any DMV office or by mail.

The foundation also helped pass House Bill 100 in 2025, which provides free school lunches to students who qualify for reduced-price meals and bans lunch shaming. Legislative estimates put the number of students covered at about 40,000 statewide.

Most lunch debt belongs to working families earning just above the income threshold for free meals, according to the foundation. For Davis County families wondering whether their school carries debt, the foundation publishes its tracker at utldr.org.