Good Samaritan Pays Off Student Lunch Accounts

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Ryan Cox has earned quite a reputation for himself as a good Samaritan for taking it upon himself to earn money for local Indianapolis school kids who can’t afford to pay for their lunches.

Cox heard about kids who were going hungry because they were embarrassed to be seen eating the lunch that the kids are offered when they can’t afford to pay for the meals that other kids get. He went in to Lakeside Elementary and paid off the balances for 22 children, leaving the three lunch ladies in tears. He then asked what the total was outstanding for the entire school. It was $1,261.98.?So, Cox blogged about the event, and also rallied his Facebook friends to help raise money for the project.

What is Cox’s motivation? We will let him reveal that in his own words:

I don’t care why the parents haven’t paid the accounts. I have zero interest in debating why or how a parent could let their kids account go negative. It isn’t my place to judge. I don’t know another parent’s story, and I feel comfortable saying that more often than not there are reasons and if those who do judge learned the reasons that they’d feel like complete jerks.?The point is much much bigger: It’s about the kids. I don’t want any kid to feel different in the cafeteria because they are on reduced lunch, free lunch, different than everyone else lunch?etc. I don’t want there to be a kid who doesn’t eat because he or she is too embarrassed because of what delinquent account kids eat.

So with the help of the internet Cox was able to raise the money to pay off Lakeside Elementary’s entire outstanding lunch debt.

But, as Cox later blogged, a monster had been awakened. More specifically, a lunch monster.

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There have been three schools so far that Cox has been able to ‘zero out’ the lunch balances, and he wants folks to know he couldn’t have done it without them. But there’s still so much left to do.

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Now, Ryan Cox is about to meet with his accountant today to start a charity around raising money to pay for the lunches of children who cannot afford them.

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If you want to become one of Ryan Cox’s lunch monsters, you can contact him here to donate and to drop him an awesome little note letting him know that you think the world is a better place with him in it.

h/t AOL

Edited/Published by: SB

Simone, a liberal feminist through and through, lives in America's Midwest amongst more corn than she ever imagined possible. Her interests are varied, ranging from politics, art, and cooking to languages, sewing, and her collection of post-WWII Japanese china and ceramics. Her favorite blogging companions are her cats, Pusszirra, Krunk the Cave Cat, and BonusKitty.