$945.

For some people, it’s a pittance and for others a fortune. For the town of Jupiter, Florida, it was the total of all student lunch debt owed by the district’s children.

When a real estate agent named Andrew Levy learned about the outstanding debt owed by families in the nine schools that make up Jupiter’s school district, he asked if he could pay it off.

Levy was shocked to learn that students who could not afford lunch would go the entire school day hungry or be given a simple cheese sandwich to try to fill their empty stomachs.

He told CBS-4 News:

“Food is something that you shouldn’t have to think about. 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.”

You don’t need to have much of an imagination to realize just how hard it would be to try and get through a school day successfully while hungry – most of us start complaining well before noon and we don’t even have to do calculus.

While Levy doesn’t have children of his own or any connection to the school district, he simply found it unacceptable that Jupiter students were at such a learning disadvantage. This is definitely one citizen who understands the importance of lifting kids up before bigger problems begin!

And when he saw the number – $944.34 – he knew he could make a difference by making a simple donation.

“I thought, ‘You know something? If for a modest sum I could make that change, I’m gonna do it,’” Levy said. “I went in there and I said, ‘I want to pay off the lunch debt.’”

While he’s received a lot of attention for his act – even being contacted by international news outlets to tell his story – he insists it’s nothing but a “kind gesture.”

But he’s also looking to the future to make sure no more children in Jupiter – or in Florida – have to go hungry because of lunch debt, so he’s started a fundraising campaign for others to make similar kind gestures:

“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.

His GoFundMe campaign “A Child Can’t Learn Hungry” easily reached – and exceeded – his $2,500 target. On the fundraiser’s page he described his goal:

“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. Plus, they will never have to experience school-shaming that comes with it.”

Levy is neither the first nor the last person making such a kind gesture. People all over the country are inquiring about their own district’s lunch debt in order to help pay it off.

But Levy has inspired many who weren’t previously thinking about it.

In December 2016, Ashley C. Ford raised thousands of dollars with a single tweet urging people to donate to school districts near them. Months later, in Minnesota, donors raised $100,000 to pay off lunch debts in Minneapolis schools and $28,000 for schools in St. Paul. Austin, Houston, Amherst, Virginia, and now Jupiter, Florida are just the latest cities to see this kind of generosity.

And entire states are stepping up as well. California just passed a bill to end the “lunch shaming” that allows schools to give out cheaper and less nutritious “alternative” lunches to students with debt. All students will get the lunch of their choice so they can fill their stomachs AND their minds.

Be sure to scroll down below to see an interview with Levy.

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Source: CBS Miami, GoFundMe, HuffPost, Mental Floss, People