Woman’s Mom-Senses Kicked In When Her Son Started Asking For Two Lunches

Josette Duran and her son Dylan happily reside in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her eighth grader was as kind and compassionate as they come, and Josette was proud to have raised him that way. Dylan was the furthest thing from a problem child.

Especially considering what a wonderful young man Dylan was turning out to be, Josette was more than happy to make his school lunches every morning. They usually consisted of a sandwich, a bag of chips, a drink, and a fruit. It should have been more than enough to eat.

But then, just a week into the 2016 school year, Dylan had a peculiar request regarding his school lunches. He asked his mom if she could start packing two lunches. Josette’s mind immediately started racing. Did her lunches not pack enough of a punch?

“Why? Are you not getting full? What’s going on?” the single mom pried. “No, I’m getting full, but I want to take one for my friend,” Dylan replied. Hmm, Josette couldn’t help but scratch her head in confusion.

See, Dylan started noticing that one of his classmates would come in with hardly any food for lunch time, usually just a measly fruit cup. Dylan put two and two together, figuring that the boy’s family couldn’t afford to send him to school with a sufficient lunch.

“I was homeless a few years ago. I know how hard it is to ask for help. You get ashamed and feel embarrassed,” Josette told Today. So when Dylan told her about the boy at school, her empathy kicked in.

She remembered it being a dark time, as her and Dylan isolated themselves from friends and family members “because we didn’t want anyone to know what was going on with us.” They weren’t themselves.

Thinking back to those days was painful for the Duran duo; however, Josette and Dylan didn’t let their negative experiences bring them down, but rather lift them, as well as others, up.

“I was taught if you can’t be nice, then you be extra nicer, and I’ve always raised my son to be that way. I’ve always taught him to be kind and help others,” explained Josette. Dylan undoubtedly picked up on everything he was his strong mama taught him.

So, Josette didn’t hesitate to help out the boy and his family (who all remain anonymous). The least she could do was pack Dylan an extra sandwich and some extra snacks, as well as some uplifting sticky notes to brighten the boys’ days.

Josette, who coaches girls’ volleyball at Dylan’s school, figured said school didn’t know anything about the boy’s rocky financial situation, that is until he finally applied for the reduced meal program, which Dylan nudged him to do.

“That school would never let any child go hungry. They take care of everybody, but this little boy was probably too embarrassed. He didn’t want to speak up,” Josette said, sticking up for the school she so clearly believes in.

After several weeks of packing two lunches, Josette had the pleasure of meeting the boy’s mom in person. Josette admitted she was initially nervous to meet her. “In this day and age, when you try to help somebody, some people get offended by it. People aren’t used to kindness,” she said.

“So I was kind of scared. I didn’t want her (the mom) to think that I was stepping on her toes, or crossing boundaries, but she was very, very thankful and told me so. She told me how much she appreciated what we did,” Josette continued.

The boy’s mother kindly offered to pay back Josette for the cost of the extra lunches she’d made, but Josette refused. “To us, we were just doing something normal,” Josette explained.

Though this act of kindness was just in Josette’s good nature, people weren’t too sure her motives were genuine after she posted photos of herself packing the double lunches on Facebook. People saw it as Josette looking for some sort of brownie points.

Josette clarified for some suspicious Facebook moms, saying that she only posted the photos to highlight how proud she was of her son for speaking up and thinking of others. She continued to point out that these Facebook users knew nothing about her son specifically, who’s experienced horrific bullying.

“We’ve been through some hardships together, so we know what that feels like and we don’t want no one else to feel that way, so we try to be proactive and help when we need to help. We don’t think twice about it,” Josette relayed.

And even when Josette’s girls volleyball team sweetly raised $400 to reimburse her for the extra lunches she prepared out of the kindness of her heart, she felt wrong pocketing the money. Instead, Josette put the money toward the school’s cafeteria, specifically to pay off the dues on students’ lunch accounts.

“Being kind doesn’t have to come in monetary form. Just know that if you’re having a good day, someone else is having a bad day, and you should fix that,” Josette told Inside Edition.