A Texas High School raised almost $20,000 to pay off their beloved custodian’s medical debt, also donating a car and a new bike for his commute.
At J.J. Pearce High School, in Richardson ISD in North Dallas, Custodian Van Le was one of the highlights of the campus, always showing up to school with a smile and giving out high-fives to students.
The swim team noticed Le had been missing from the school and pool deck for a few days. That was when their coach, Eric Ewing, discovered that Le had been suffering serious health problems, leading to him missing eight weeks of work.
The team quickly decided to hold a Swim-A-Thon to help raise money for him with one of the team members, Sophia Nidam saying “The more we learned about him, the more we knew he was the guy we needed to be doing it for.”
The team reached out to the community, asking for donations and the swimmers logged more than 4,000 meters over their hour long swim-a-thon, raising $17,000 for his medical bills, while also setting up help to negotiate the remaining bills with the hospital.
The team also got a car and a new bike for Le, who was biking more than an hour to work everyday.
Le is working on becoming an American citizen and doesn’t speak much English, but he told CBS News, “I think it’s very surprise [ing] for me. A big thank you for everybody, for the professors, for all the teachers, and all the students.”
Fantastic!!! What a great group of kids, AND parents.
ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ all my love to Van and these kids. How incredible!!!
(If you’d like to contribute to help erase medical debt in the US, there are orgs that buy it up for much less than the people in need would be paying. $10 relieves $1000 of debt. Not affiliated, just think this is a really neat cause.)
Awesome!