Anonymous donor pays off meal debts for students in honor of late lunch lady

To honor a popular lunch lady, an anonymous donor in Port Clinton, Ohio, paid off the lunch debts of 158 students.

In February, a person contacted the school district and said they would like to cover every lunch balance on the books — more than $500 for students from kindergarten to 12th grade — to celebrate their favorite cafeteria worker, Ruth Vogt, who died in January. Vogt retired in 1998 after working for 20 years at Port Clinton High School. Vogt's daughter, elementary school teacher Martha Vogt Snyder, told The Port Clinton News Herald her mother used to dig into her pockets for spare change to help kids who didn't have enough money to pay for lunch. "She was a very kind and generous soul," Snyder said.

Vogt's family doesn't even know the identity of the anonymous donor, but Snyder wants this person to know the plan shows they "really knew our mother well," and Vogt is "smiling down on them."

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