Sarah Stusek, a Broadneck High School alum, called Annapolis Middle School last week and promised to pay the school lunch debt for every student, totaling $2,630.
“I just think everybody deserves to eat,” she said in an interview.
Stusek posted the video of her call to the school and her conversation with financial secretary Christy Call to her social media accounts.
“Are you kidding me? You’re going to make me cry,” Call says in the video.
The video has 1.4 million views on Instagram and more than 175,000 views on TikTok.
After seeing a social media post in 2022 suggesting people pay school lunch debt, Stusek began calling schools to inquire about the debt and crowdsourcing donations online.
Upon realizing the scale of the need, she launched a nonprofit in 2024 called the Proper Help Foundation.
By posting videos of her calls to schools offering donations, Stusek has built an online following and receives suggestions for schools in need, including Annapolis Middle School.
“I’ve always wanted to give back to my community, and I have my whole life through different organizations,” Stusek said. “To have something like this that I call my own, I never dreamed that could happen.”
Maryland families owe more than $121 million in school lunch debt, according to data from the Education Data Initiative.
Under the federal Free and Reduced Meals program, a family of four must make less than $57,720 per year to qualify for reduced-price lunches. But many families fall into the gap where they earn too much to qualify for assistance and still struggle to keep up with basic expenses.
A 2025 SmartAsset analysis, using the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s living wage calculator, estimates a four-person household in Maryland needs $239,450 annually to cover essential costs.
Even when students do qualify for assistance, some families are unaware of the program or face other barriers to participation like social stigma or limited English proficiency, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
By state law, schools cannot deny a student a meal because of unpaid lunch debt. In Anne Arundel, the meal is charged to the student’s account and parents are contacted about the negative balance, according to district policy.
Stusek’s organization has paid off $75,681.55 in lunch debt so far, Stusek says. Its largest single contribution was $29,720, which cleared the debt for all 18 schools in Alexandria City Public Schools.
She runs the nonprofit in her spare time while operating a production company, Stusek Studios, in Alexandria, Virginia, during the day. Volunteers have recently stepped in to help maintain the website, she says.
She said all money raised goes directly toward lunch debt.
District spokesperson Maneka Monk confirmed that the school is expecting a check in the mail.
“[The staff at Annapolis Middle] are grateful and excited by this overwhelming kindness,” Monk said.
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