8-Year Old Boy Forced To Pay Off $4K School Lunch Debt

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8-Year Old Pays Off $4,000 School Lunch Debt By Selling Keychains

A lot of wild ish is going on in this country today, but forcing kids to pay off thousands of dollars worth of school lunch debt is just bottom of the barrel evil. But 8-year old Keoni Ching from Vancouver, Washington used the debt as motivation to get creative, and lowkey become a young entrepreneur. By selling is handmade key chains that go for $5 each, Ching raised $4,015 to erase the lunch debt of students from his school and six others.

CNN:

It all started because Keoni wanted to do something special for “Kindness Week” at his school, Benjamin Franklin Elementary. He said he decided to make key chains because, “I love key chains. They look good on my backpack.” Once word of Keoni’s key chains and his heartwarming cause got out, people from all over the country started sending in their requests for one of the custom key chains.

Dope! Keoni’s mother April told CNN:

There was one lady who said she wanted $100 worth of key chains so that she could just hand them out to people. … There were several people who bought one key chain and gave (Keoni) a hundred bucks. It was absolutely amazing how much support the community showed for his whole project.”

More than 300 key chains were sold, and hundreds of children are now debt free. Out of the $4,015 check, $1,000 will go to the school to pay off the $500 lunch debt and for any future debt incurred, while the rest will go to six other nearby schools, which will get $500 each to clear their own lunch debts.

Associating children with debt is bizarre, anyway. We have to do better.