For close to five years, the woman, Bonnie, reportedly served lunch to the many students that walked in and out of the cafeteria. “They’re all like my grandchildren—I’ve watched them all grow up. I was there four and a half years,” Bonnie said. After years of working in the same lunchroom, Bonnie did not imagine that she would be fired over a matter of $8. When Bonnie saw a hungry student at the high school, she decided to let him have his lunch even though he didn’t have enough money to cover the items on his lunch tray. “To me, letting that kid go hungry because he didn’t bring any money that day, that would have been wrong,” Bonnie said. “If the bill did not get paid, damn straight I would have paid it out of my own pocket.”
The cafeteria worker explained that the teenager’s family no longer qualified for a free lunch, and so, he would bring his lunch from home or ask his friends to pay for him. So that day, when Bonnie saw him walk up to her with a lunch tray, she told him “tell your mom you need money” and allowed the teenager to walk away with the tray. The next day, the teenager paid the money. However, that same afternoon, Bonnie lost her job. “…The district manager called me aside and fired me. Told me that that was theft because I let him leave the kitchen without paying for it,” Bonnie said.
As the news spread, people were outraged to hear that Bonnie was fired for letting a hungry student have a free meal. Along with being the subject of national news, Bonnie received a number of job offers from different places. But, following the massive attention that the incident received, it was reported that the mother of the teenager, who was given the free lunch, spoke about the incident and revealed the chilling truth.
The boy’s mother reportedly said that Bonnie was lying. “I have three children, and they are all well-cared for and well-fed,” the mother said, as quoted by The Washington Post. “She did not get fired for feeding a hungry child.” The unidentified mother also said that Bonnie had been sending messages to her teenage son to cover her tracks. In a statement, the president of the Café Services, Brian, also claimed that Bonnie had given the teenager much more than just one meal. “This student hadn’t been charged for anything for the previous three months,” Brian said. “This employee was dishonest and was let go for not following procedures.”