Pay it 4Ward: Turn tragedy into victory

For years together, they ran two successful restaurants in northwest Oklahoma City. Cathy Cummings was the heart and soul of the business and a former mayor of the Village. But tragically she was struck down by cancer.

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — Sean Cummings is on a mission. On a unique mission to honor his late wife, Cathy Cummings. 

For years together, they ran two successful restaurants in northwest Oklahoma City. Cathy Cummings was the heart and soul of the business and a former mayor of the Village. But tragically she was struck down by cancer.

However before she passed recently, she and Sean talked about how she wanted to be remembered. 

"She was really into politics here and she was in it for the reasons to help people,” says Sean. “We came up with this school lunch idea because we have this friend and their kid owed $2.50 and couldn't get his transcript sent to a college where he had a scholarship. They were holding it. It's a threat or whatever you want to call it.  And we started looking into it just to find out how much school lunch debt there was out there was. And it's hundreds of thousands of debt in Oklahoma. It's crazy."

So in Cathy’s name he began a go fund me account to pay off school lunches and the response has been amazing. Over $70,000 has been raised and Sean is going to different schools around the state to pay off the school lunch debt for hundreds of kids.

In one case, a student wasn’t wanting to eat so their sibling could enjoy the lunch. The student didn’t feel their parents could afford for both to have a lunch ticket. Sean, in Cathy’s name, took care of that. 

Because of all he has done, Tonya Hartman, who does not know Sean, nominated him for Pay It Forward.

"I lost my mom about a year ago to cancer. And after hearing he lost Cathy the same war. It inspired me,” Tonya told us. “Just the way he's handled his grief and doing something really good for people and being very positive. I wanted to do the same thing."

After we received the $400 Pay It Forward award from First Fidelity Bank’s Caitlin Melgar, we surprised Sean in his restaurant kitchen.

He became emotional thinking of his late wife and how the mission she inspired is being recognized by so many people. Telling us the $400 will be used to pay off more school lunch debt for students.

Sean Cummings taking a heart wrenching loss and turning it into a victory by paying it forward.