BOZEMAN, Mont.–A credit union here has helped expand a local mom’s effort at paying off school lunch debts.
Kelsey Lopp said she initially posed a question on Facebook asking if anyone knew whether she could donate to the Bozeman Public Schools to pay off the negative balance on lunch accounts.
“I really wanted to just, I don’t know, put it out there, I didn’t think it would go this far,” Lopp told ABCFoxMontana.com.
Lopp learned she could donate to any individual school or a district-wide lunch account by mailing a check, but said she wanted to do more as “I have been there before.”
So Lopp created a GoFundMe account with a goal of raising $5,000. When she awoke the next morning, the $5,000 had already been raised.
CU Steps In
That’s when Rocky Mountain Credit Union got involved after learning of the effort. According to ABCFoxMontana.com, the CU told Lopp they would meet her at the school district’s offices.
“We are going to donate a total of $5,000; $2,000 to the Bozeman Schools and then $1,000 in Helena, Butte, and Belgrade,” Steve Sendon the president and CEO of Rocky Mountain Credit Union was quoted as saying.
Sendon told the news outlet people in the CU’s offices were talking about Lopp’s effort when they decided to get involved just in time for the holidays.
“You know it takes a village to raise a child, and this really proves that point, thank you very much,” said Bob Connors, the superintendent of Bozeman Public Schools, when accepting the check, according to the report.