An extremely kind and generous man from Florida has made sure that dozens of children received a hot meal at school one day and for many, many more days to come.
Andrew Levy, a real estate agent from Florida, recently learned that there was a large school lunch debt in the nine schools in the town of Jupiter.
He decided to pay off all of them.
The total debt accumulated over the nine public schools in Jupiter amounts to $944. Andrew just couldn’t stand the idea that children would have to go to school without proper food, so he paid off all school lunch debts in the entire town.
Students who have a lunch debt at school aren’t given full meals, but a simple cheese sandwich instead. That definitely isn’t enough to fill someone’s stomach, and Andrew felt heartbroken when he learned about the whole situation.
“Food is something that you shouldn’t have to think about,” the man said to CBS-4. “Children shouldn’t have to learn hungry. These children that were in debt were going to either not eat or they would get just cheese sandwiches, and I thought that’s crazy.”
The man doesn’t have children of his own and doesn’t have really have a connection with the schools.
He’s only been living there since 2014, but he has fallen in love with the Jupiter-area. When he saw the debt numbers, the man felt like he needed to take action and make a difference. He paid $944,34 and every child’s lunch debt in Jupiter was taken care of – hungry no more!
“I thought, ‘You know something? If for a modest sum I could make that change, I’m gonna do it,’” he added. “I went in there and I said, ‘I want to pay off the lunch debt.’”
The man himself simply calls it a ‘kind gesture,’ nothing more.
However, little did he know that his act of generosity would go worldwide and inspire plenty of others to help as well.
His Facebook-profile started flooding with comments of other members in the community and complete strangers miles away, asking how they could help. The man was also overwhelmed by the attention that news outlets, some even international, have given the story. His inspiring deed has already been reported by news outlets in the UK and even Vietnam, for example.
“I even have had some clients over the past 48 hours say, ‘You know something, I want to help, I want to give too'”.
“Every quarter, I’m going to do either a GoFundMe page or a fundraising page that can raise money every quarter, so lunch debt never accumulates so that children never have to worry about a hot meal and parents never have to worry about paying the bill,” he said.
And Andrew kept his promise.
His first GoFundMe campaign, titled ‘A Child Can’t Learn Hungry’, has already reached the target of $2,500 to pay off lunch debt. His ultimate goal? To make sure that no child in Jupiter or even Florida will ever have to worry about having a full meal on a school day.
“Back in August, I read that lunch debt existed in the Jupiter School District that would prevent children from having a hot lunch. It might even prevent children from eating. This shocked me! I’ve been lucky enough never to have to worry about food while in school, so I paid it off.”
“Now is your chance to help to make sure no child ever goes hungry again and has a hot lunch in school,” he wrote on the GoFundMe page. “Plus, they will never have to experience school-shaming that comes with it.”
“It’s my mission to make sure Jupiter School children never go hungry again and parents don’t have to worry about lunch debt. Who knows, maybe one day I can make sure the whole state of Florida never has to worry about lunch debt again.”
What an amazing act of kindness!
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