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Former Teacher Fulfils Promise To Leave $1m Dollars To School District

Former Teacher Fulfils Promise To Leave $1m Dollars To School District

Genevieve Via Cava used to tell her students she'd leave them $1m - now, seven years after her death, the money has arrived

Mike Wood

Mike Wood

Who'd be a teacher? It all looks decent when you're weighing up the summer holidays, but the out-of-hours work is horrendous, the pressure is relentless and, worst of all, you have to spend your adult life back in the one place we're all happy to have left behind.

(Yes, school. Keep up.)

Some teachers genuinely love their job, however - Genevieve Via Cava, for instance. When the New Jersey educator told her students that one day she would give them a million dollars, not many would've believed her. After all, what sort of public school teacher even has a million dollars just to give away?

Richard Jablonski


She's certainly proved everyone wrong now, however, having donated $1 million (£747,000) to the Dumont School District's Board of Education as part of her will, a full seven years after she passed away at the age of 89.

"I wasn't surprised that she was going to be donating something," said Dumont school superintendent Emanuele Triggiano, according to the New York Times. "The surprise was the amount of money she sent to us."

Via Cava had reportedly told Triggiano many times that she would give the school district money, but few had actually thought that it would come to pass.

The money is not just a hefty sum - it is cleverly invested so that it will accrue continually and therefore create wealth as it stays with the bank.

According to Triggiano, the money that Via Cava donated will be used to provide as much as $25,000's (£18,700) worth of college scholarships for lower-income students, beginning from next year, with the interest enough that it will continue indefinitely.

"Her family went through the Depression, and I think a lot of that had a big influence on her life, being so frugal," said Richard Jablonski, a long-time family friend of Via Cava and executor of her will, to northjersey.com.

Dumont High School.
Public domain

It is thought that Via Cava, a special needs educator, generated such a large amount of cash by her naturally frugal nature: she rarely bought clothes and would even scrimp on the hearing aids that she needed in order to save the pennies. When her husband passed away, she even stopped going on holidays in order to boost her savings.

"She didn't have too many people. She was a rough-exterior type of a person. But she could light up a room. She had a killer smile," Jablonski continued.

"Her name will live on forever in this scholarship fund. It's unbelievable that she's going to have this effect."

As well as leaving money to the school district, Ms Via Casa also gave to animal homes and the Salvation Army from her will.

Featured Image Credit: PA

Topics: Money, Inspirational, US News, Education