On December 17th, DARCARS paid off $25,000 in school lunch debt for the Prince George County Public School District.

Chief Operating Officer Jamie Darvish presented a $25,000 check to the nonprofit Excellence in Education Foundation for PGCPS at William Hall Academy in Capitol Heights, Maryland.

“More than 75% of school districts reported having unpaid student meal debt at the end of the 2016-2017 school year, according to a 2018 report by the School Nutrition Association, which surveyed 1,550 districts nationwide.”

"DARCARS Toyota is happy for the opportunity to be able to pay off the current school lunch debt of every student in Prince George’s County. School lunch debt is a serious problem in this country that impacts the well-being of students and their families,” Darvish said. “As a member of the Prince George’s County community, we at DARCARS felt it was our obligation to step up and help families in need. I really look and I see it’s not easy to be a kid today,” he continued. “The last thing in the world that a child needs to worry about is eating. And being hungry makes accomplishing tasks of overcoming those challenges and burdens in society that much harder. So I’m honored and I’m glad that we could step up and do this."

And stay tuned. We’re not stopping here.

“So I’m extremely excited to be here,” Prince George’s County Public Schools CEO Monica Goldson said at the event. “Not just because we’re a few days away from our winter break but because we have a community partner who thought it not robbery to provide some holiday cheer to a large number of families in Prince George’s County.”

“It became apparent we had an issue with school lunch debt last winter,” she said. “And we’re grateful that many of our community partners came together and helped to make sure that parents did not have to worry about feeding their children during that difficult time.”

Goldson says they were able to provide meals to 10,000 students. And that DARCARS Automotive Group reached out recently to do something extra special during the holiday season: wipe out student lunch debt across the entire district.

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