David Shaffer
In 2019, a widely shared account from Chicago’s South Side told of a janitor who paid off students’ lunch debts for years without fanfare. According to the story, no one knew what he had been doing until after he died when a bookkeeper noticed a pattern of small payments in the school’s records.
The account described a man named Ernest Johnson who, paycheck by paycheck, set aside money to clear lunch balances for children whose families could not afford their meals. Each time he was paid, he covered what he could. There were no announcements, no recognition and no public awareness of what he was doing.
Ernie did not wait for someone else to fix the situation. He started where he was, with what he had, and he kept giving.
I have been in the nonprofit world for 41 years, and my wife, Daniele, has been a part of it for 38 years.
We can tell you from experience that $300, spread out over a year, makes a real difference for any Azle-area nonprofit. It also happens to be an amount that many people would never write in a single check. Writing a $300 check in one month can disrupt a tight budget. Writing a $25 check usually does not.
When $25 is given monthly, it quietly becomes $300 over the course of a year. If that same habit continues, it becomes $1,000 in a little more than three years. The nonprofit still receives the same amount, but it arrives in a way that fits real life.
Going small is often how something big actually gets done.
A little becomes a lot when it is repeated. When many people give a little, the cumulative effect can be surprisingly large.
Ernie did not solve hunger, fix broken systems or change national policy. He simply refused to let a small burden keep landing on the same children when he could privately lift it. Some good comes from bold moments, but much of it comes from people consistently doing small acts of kindness and giving.
A line attributed to Helen Keller fits this story well. She said, “I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.” That is exactly what Ernie did, one paycheck at a time.
Though it may seem that Ernie simply paid off lunch debts, his actions also protected children’s dignity.
He kept them from being singled out or embarrassed. He made sure their hunger was invisible, much like his giving. It is a kind of goodness that is absorbed into the lives it touches and produces hope.
Let’s bring the story closer to home. Generosity showed itself in a powerful way just a few weeks ago. In late November, an anonymous donor paid off every negative lunch balance in Azle ISD before the holidays.
Then, in early January, another anonymous donor cleared overdue lunch balances for Azle’s Cross Timbers Elementary School students. No names were released. No press conference was held. Families were simply notified that the burden had been lifted, and the district posted statements of gratitude. For children who would have gone to school worried about unpaid meals, and for parents who were already stretched thin, it was an extraordinary kindness.
The Azle ISD gifts were not “little” ones. They were sweeping. But what makes them resonate with Ernie’s story is not the size of the checks. It is the same spirit behind them. People saw a need, chose not to look away and acted without any desire for recognition. That same quiet compassion, whether it shows up as $25 a month or a once-in-a-lifetime act of kindness, is what makes communities like ours special.
On behalf of the many nonprofit organizations serving families in the Azle area, thank you for the support you already give. To those who have been waiting until their budget could handle a substantial gift, I invite you to consider choosing an Azle nonprofit and starting a monthly contribution that fits your budget. It does not have to be dramatic. It just has to be steady.
Ernie never saw himself as a hero. He never made a speech, wrote a book or went viral during his lifetime, but he faithfully made the same generous choice again and again.
And a little became a lot.
