John Legend Donates $5K To Help Pay For Seattle's School Lunch Debt

Grammy-winning artist John Legend recently showed his philanthropic side once again by donating funds to help pay for school lunch debt across Seattle’s public schools. 

The singer/songwriter made a donation of $5,000 to a GoFundMe campaign started by Jeff Lew, with a goal to “erase Seattle School lunch debt.” 

As The Seattle Times reports, John Legend, real name John Roger Stephens, made the donation over the weekend. Lew, who created the campaign a few weeks ago, told reporters that once he got the notification about the donation, “I went to send a nice thank you message for the generous donation.”

According to CNN, Lew asked in his email response to the donation, “… are you also known as John Legend?’ Shortly after, Lew got a response from John Legend with a subject line saying “yes it’s me” and “glad you’re doing this.”

The campaign, which has garnered more than $40,000 in 21 days, was created by Lew to eliminate any shame that students might feel over lunch debts. According to The Times report, if a student owes $15 or more for meals, schools provide a modified meal, which many have identified as a way to “shame” students.

Lew expressed his gratitude on social media for the donation, writing that the Darkness and Light artist “inspires” him. 

The funds collected from the campaign will be distributed among 99 Seattle public schools.