The heartwarming reason this boy asked his mother to pack two school lunches every day
Little boy asked his mother to pack two school lunches every day – Source: Josette Duran
For months on end, Josette Duran, a mother-of-one from Albuquerque, New Mexico, had been fixing two school lunches for her 14-year-old son, Dylan. When she finally found out why the boy needed double as much food as he used to in order to get through the day, she could barely hold back the tears.
One day, Dylan asked his mother to pack him two lunchboxes to take to school. She didn’t ask any questions and fixed him two delicious midday meals.
The 14-year-old kept repeating the same unusual request every day, so Mrs. Duran stopped him and asked: “Are you not getting full?”
Dylan explained why he wanted two school lunches. It turns out he was eating one and giving the other to his friend who didn’t have any lunch money and seemed hungry.
“Mom, it’s for this boy. He only eats a fruit cup for lunch. Can you make him lunch, too? I don’t think he has lunch money,” the boy said.
“I was totally shocked,” Mrs. Duran confessed. “I had no idea why I was making two lunches, I just did it. It just became normal.”
When she later found out that Dylan’s friend’s mother was a single parent who had lost her job and was struggling to make ends meet, Mrs. Duran was even more touched by her son’s kind gesture.
Two school lunches fixed by Mrs. Duran – Source: Josette Duran
“Dylan is too kind-hearted,” the mother said. “He is my hero.”
Both Dylan and his mother understood the struggles all too well. They both went through difficult times four years ago, when they became homeless. “We were homeless for a period. We were living out of my car, hotels and on friends’ couches. As a result, we are rather soft-hearted,” Josette Duran said.
After a while, Dylan’s friend’s mother found out that Mrs. Duran was preparing an extra lunch for her child every day and tried to pay her back for her kindness.
Since she wouldn’t accept the money, the school’s volleyball team raised $400 to give to Mrs. Duran as thanks. Duran donated the money to the school cafeteria and paid up all the past due accounts for all the children that needed lunch.
“I’m not doing this for praise or anything; it’s pretty – it’s pretty intense,” Mrs. Duran said.
