Genevieve Via Cava (pictured) died aged 89 in 2011, a decade after she retired from her role at Dumont Public Schools
A childless New Jersey special needs teacher has left $1million in her will to her students.
Genevieve Via Cava died aged 89 in 2011, a decade after she retired from her role at Dumont Public Schools.
Now, seven years after the beloved teacher’s death, Dumont received a surprise from her estate; a $1 million check.
School superintendent Emanuele Triggiano called it ‘a blessing.’
‘I wasn’t surprised that she was going to be donating something,’ Triggiano told the New York Times. ‘The surprise was the amount of money she sent to us.’
Friends of Cava, who had no children or immediate family, had grown up in the Depression and spent her life scrimping and saving.
By the time of her death, she had saved $1 million which will be used to create a scholarship for special needs students.
Beginning with next spring’s high school graduates, the scholarship fund will be available to special education students planning to continue their education. Students will be able to received up to $25,000 per individual.
‘In the event the scholarship fund grows to the extent that two or more scholarships can be made available, we can then give it to additional students,’ Triggiano said.
Cava spent 45 years as a special needs teacher at the middle school and high school levels in Bergen County, in northern New Jersey, where she was a beloved and dedicated teacher.
Cava spent 45 years as a special needs teacher at the Dumont Public Schools in Bergen County, in northern New Jersey (pictured)
The school district’s business administrator, Kevin Cartotto, said he was stunned by the move, but if anyone was to make such a grand generous gesture, it would be Cava.
Cava’s friend Richard Jablonski, 63, who was also executor of her will, said she’d managed to save an incredible amount of money over the years by her resourcefulness.
She refused to buy full price clothes, or even buy the hearing aids she needed and stopped going on vacation after her husband died.
Her generosity didn’t end with the check either. Jablonski said she cared about her students both inside and outside the classroom. She even helped several of her former students, by then in their 20s or 30s, find jobs.
‘She was an amazing woman who could light up a room just by walking in,’ Jablonski told NorthJersey.com. ‘She had a smile that was unbelievable. She could talk to anybody just to start conversation with them, and by the time they walked away, they would be hugging.’
He added that he was glad her act of generosity would mean she would not be forgotten.
‘Her name will go on forever, and rightfully so.’