Her Son Suddenly Asked for Two Lunches Every Day. When She Found Out Why, She Never Said No Again

A week into the new school year, Josette Duran was making her son’s lunch, like every morning.

Then Dylan asked her a strange question.

“Mom, can you pack me two lunches?”

Josette was surprised. Was he not getting enough to eat? Was he hungry all the time?

“No, I’m getting full,” Dylan told her. “But I want to take one for my friend.”

Dylan was 14, an eighth-grader in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He had noticed a new boy in his class who brought nothing to lunch except a small fruit cup. Every single day. Dylan guessed that the boy’s family could not afford more, and that he was too embarrassed to tell anyone.

Josette did not ask any more questions. She just said yes.

From that day on, she made two of everything. Two sandwiches. Two snacks. Two drinks. Sometimes she even added little notes to the bags, wishing the boys a great day.

“It became my normal,” she later said.

Josette knew exactly how that other boy felt. A few years earlier, she and Dylan had been homeless. She remembered how hard it was to ask for help, and how ashamed it made you feel.

For weeks, the second lunch kept coming. Nobody at school knew. The two boys simply ate together and became best friends.

Then one day, Josette was asked to come to the school. The other boy’s mother was there. She had just found a new job, and she held out some money to pay Josette back for all those lunches.

Josette refused to take it.

But the story was not over. The girls on the volleyball team that Josette coached heard what she had done. They collected around $400 and gave it to her as a thank-you.

Josette did not keep that either. She took the money to the school cafeteria and used it to pay off the overdue lunch accounts of other kids at the school.

“So now, nobody in that school owes any money,” she said. “And now everyone can eat.”

When her story went viral, a man in Iowa was so moved that he paid off the lunch debts at his own old elementary school.

All because a 14-year-old boy noticed a fruit cup.

“We’re supposed to help people,” Josette said.

Did you ever share your lunch with someone at school? Tell us in the comments.