Kati Jo Christensen, a special education teacher, has been dancing on TikTok under the username “MrsCactusVibes” to raise money through donations and video monetization to pay off her school’s lunch debt. She began in January with the goal of building a following on the platform and raising $4,000 for the school.

“I had seen another creator doing this for her own school on TikTok,” Christensen told the Standard-Examiner. “And I knew that my school, West Haven Elementary, had a bit of a lunch deficit. … I thought I could probably do the same thing. So, I figured out how much my lunch deficit was going to be and then I started making videos and working on getting 10,000 followers on TikTok. And then it just kind of grew into what it is now.”

In just a few months, Christensen has garnered more than 47,000 followers and raised nearly $20,000 while busting moves to the likes of Flo Rida, Coldplay, Lady Gaga, ABBA and others.

In doing so, she has helped pay off lunch deficits at Roy Elementary, Roy High, Lakeview Elementary, Hill Field Elementary and Salt Lake County’s Robert Frost Elementary, in addition to West Haven.

West Haven City Mayor Rob Vanderwood and the City Council presented Christensen with a Community Star award acknowledging the accomplishment. For Christensen, though, the work is only beginning.

“No child is denied a lunch. So, they will always be fed,” Christensen said. “But then that school lunch debt or deficit will follow the student all the way until they graduate high school. And, in some cases, if they haven’t paid for that, they don’t get their high school diploma. So, it kind of stands in the way of them actually getting to their future goals. … I feel like we, as a state, can definitely help fix that. Just because the students are required to be in school every single day, we should be able to pick up that bill for their food.”

The state’s combined lunch deficit for 2024 was $2.8 million, according to the Utah Lunch Debt Relief Foundation. And while the State Legislature has worked to combat the issue in recent years, Christensen hopes to see more action moving forward.

She’s not solely focused on the lunch deficit issue, however. Christensen told the Standard-Examiner that she’s also in the process of establishing a nonprofit with the intent of making an impact in the classroom itself as well.

“I want it to be not just school lunch stuff, but I wanted to also help teachers and students with school supplies,” Christensen said.

In the meantime, she plans to continue dancing and helping students at other schools with their lunch debt. To that end, she hopes people will make their own contributions wherever they can.

“They can donate to their local schools; it doesn’t have to be through like me or any kind of organization,” Christensen said. “They can just call their local school or a school that they know is struggling and they can donate to school lunch deficit.”