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

A cafeteria worker makes up a plate of food.
(Image credit: iStock)

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.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.