This 4th grader raised money to pay off her school district's lunch debts
Photo: Courtesy of Sara Bergeron
'Tis the season for giving, but for this Michigan kid, it's about more than getting gifts.
After she saw news that kids in a neighbouring school district were going without a hot lunch because they owed money for the school lunch program, Lexi Bergeron decided she wanted to do something about it. While Lexi was dreaming big, her mom Sara suggested that she start small by first trying to help the kids at her own school who couldn't pay off their lunches, at $2.65 a pop.
Lexi had been making stretchy straw fidget toys (essentially rubber bands threaded through beads and plastic straws) and selling them to kids at school for fun. However, when she heard the news about the school lunch debt, she decided to donate all her hard-earned money to the cause—a grand total of $10.
We love her ingenuity and every dollar counts when you're fundraising, but $10 could only make a small dent in nearly $200 of lunch debt at Lexi's school. Seeing her daughter's determination, Sara thought she would make Lexi a GoFundMe page. "[Lexi] heart was in it," her mom said in an interview with Babble. "With this I saw an opportunity to teach what one person can do for a community—how one person can make a change."
And the idea worked. Led by Lexi's spirited example, people began donating to the page (called "Filling tummies of school friends!" How cute!), and they reached their goal within the first day of the fundraising campaign. Having met the goal so quickly, Lexi and Sara set a new goal of $2,200, a sum that would pay off the lunch debt for Lexi's whole school district.
Less than a week later, the page surpassed its new goal and as of Wednesday, had a total of $2,230. We think it's amazing to see one kid's idea pay it forward to her whole community. Way to go, Lexi!