9-Year-Old Pays off Entire School’s Lunch Debt – with his Allowance

A 9-year-old California boy wanted his fellow third-grade classmates “to feel happy to know someone cares about them;” so he paid off his entire class’ school lunch debt with his allowance money.

After Ryan Kirkpatrick learned what “school lunch debt” actually was, he asked his mom to find out how much his classmates owed – then took his own allowance money ($74.50), to pay off the debt.

Kirkpatrick simply asked the school to tell the kids that they didn’t owe the school any more money.

Kirkpatrick donated the money anonymously – until the school’s story went viral.

But he became upset, when people used the story to highlight the problem with children having “debt” from school meals. 

Kirkpatrick said he didn’t want to brag about the donation.  Now, his family is campaigning for all students to receive their school meals for free.