Grammy-winning singer and songwriter John Legend had donated $5,000 to Lew’s GoFundMe campaign, which is created to cover the Seattle students school-meal debts.
The donation of $5,000 is the largest sum of money contributed by a single donor to the Lew’s GoFundMe campaign, which was created by Jeff Lew less than three weeks ago to cover the estimated $21,000 owed by the students in Seattle’s 99 schools. By the Sunday afternoon the campaign has raised $34,000.
Jeff Lew was skeptical, but he knew that the student-meal debt story has been featured on the national media, where a huge celebrity like John Legend could have seen it. Legend does not have any ties to the area, but his wife and also a model Chrissy Teigen, grew up in the Snohomish.
“I thought, ‘It could be him, let’s try sending him a personalized note,’” said Lew, who lives on the Beacon Hill.
Lew has sent an email through the GoFundMe to the donor, ending the email with “By the way, are you also known as John Legend? Regardless of who you are or not, thank you. You’ve helped a lot.” He soon received a reply, with the subject line: “Yes, it’s me.” The donor wrote that he had seen a story about the campaign on Twitter.
On Sunday evening, Legend responded to the Lew’s tweet, which thanked him for the donation.
“My pleasure! We should have free lunch for all of our public students!” tweeted Legend.
Thank you @johnlegend! https://t.co/i5Q4ei8ikh
— Jeff Lew (@biglew8) May 29, 2017
In Seattle area, if a student owes $15 or more for the meals, schools provide the modified meal. It is not an extreme “lunch-shaming” practice which has sparked the national outrage, but the students could feel ashamed or embarrassed.
Lew created the campaign to make it sure no student experiences that shame.
The additional money which he raised will go into the fund to cover the future debts through the end of the school year and also into the 2017-18 school year, said Lew.
In an addition to the Seattle campaign, which also received a donation of $5,000 from the Safeway Foundation, Lew created the campaigns for Renton and also Tacoma students.
About 80 people have donated $3,275 to the Renton campaign, which has a goal of obtaining $18,000. For the Tacoma campaign, nearly 250 people have donated $13,000 of the $20,000.
“It’s really cool to see that people care for this cause. It’s really getting out there,” Lew said.
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