Thurs April 6th AM Daily Do's

*** YOUR DAILY DO'S – April 6th MORNING EDITION ***   Wendi Lindquist
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This will be my last daily do for the foreseeable future. All week we’ve been talking about education and how important it is. Well I need to step back a bit and focus on editing the final draft of my doctoral dissertation so I can finally defend it (I’m not sure whether my mother or my adviser will be more pleased). Thank you to everyone for stepping up daily to turn lots of small things in to big results. 
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1. I’ve been asked many times why it is taking so long to finish my doctorate. My flippant answer is “because I’m not willing to give up the things that I love doing” but the more accurate answer is I’ve often worked multiple jobs to avoid taking on graduate student loans. But not everyone can afford this type of choice.
Recently, the Education Department--led by our favorite grizzly bear-hater Betsy Devos—has indicated that it might roll back the nearly 10-year-old Public Service Loans Forgiveness Program (http://n.pr/2oHCVns). The program was meant to encourage individuals to take jobs with nonprofits and other service sectors in return for debt forgiveness after 10 years (catch that number) of on time loan payments. Take a moment to call your members of Congress and tell them why you think loan forgiveness programs are worth keeping.
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2. Did you know that there are 97 schools in Washington where 100% of the students receive free or reduced price lunches, and another 159 where 90% of the students receive meal support. This is not a Western Washington or an Eastern Washington problem, nor an urban or rural problem—it’s a state-wide issue. 50 schools are in Yakima County, while King and Pierce counties have 23 and 13 schools in these categories respectively. Read up on the report here: http://www.k12.wa.us/ChildNutrition/Reports.aspx
These programs, which help ensure that 13 million US kids don’t starve, are of course on the chopping block. Read up on DeVos and free lunches here: http://huff.to/2kUJjcI
GIVE5: Make a donation to your local public school, or if you live in a particularly wealthy district, one on the list above, to help pay off lunch debts. Or make a donation to FoodLifeline or NorthWest Harvest which are part of the pipeline that gets food to low income kids during summer https://foodlifeline.org/ and http://www.northwestharvest.org/.
And you can always call DeVos and your members of Congress and tell them why you think it’s important that EVERY kid gets a meal during the school day, regardless of whether their families can afford it.
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3. Good news! Our state Democratic and Republican lawmakers are actually coming together on something important that we can get behind: internet privacy. There are bills in both chambers that would make it illegal for ISPs to sell the data of Washington customers without permission (article: http://bit.ly/2nZFkdd). Contact your legislator indicate your support and urge him/her/them to get the job done. 
House bill, HB 2200: http://bit.ly/2nZYbVl
Senate bill, SB 5919: http://bit.ly/2nG5cc8
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