Dead student's debt forgiven
William Winters, Change.org
Every month for six years, Joseph Bryski was forced to relive the pain of his son Christopher's death -- he had to make monthly repayments of Christopher's student loans because KeyBank refused to forgive them.
But just last week, he received some incredible news. After you and over 80,000 people signed a petition started by Christopher's brother Ryan, the bank told him it would forgive the debt!
Ryan says the repayments were a monthly torment, even forcing Joseph to come out of retirement to make ends meet. The bank refused their requests to forgive the loan for years, even though student lenders are increasingly adopting this more humane practice -- but that changed when Ryan Bryski started a Change.org petition to KeyBank.
In a matter of days, over 80,000 people signed his petition, and his family's fight for justice attracted media coverage from ABC to the Washington Post, and dozens of others. And just days later, a bank official personally called the family to forgive the loan.
"My family tried for years to get KeyBank to forgive my brother Christopher's loans after he died, and for years they ignored us," said Ryan. "Thankfully, they couldn't ignore the 80,000 people who signed our petition on Change.org. It's sad that it took so much to finally get a response, but my family and I are just so grateful that it worked."
Ryan's experience shows the incredible ability of one small action to create huge change -- and his success is already inspiring others to take action. If there's something in your life you think is unfair, discriminatory or just plain wrong, you can start a petition on Change.org right now.
Thanks for being a change-maker,
- William and the Change.org team
P.S. Wells Fargo claims that it forgives student loans in the event of death -- but after Alecha Robinson's nephew died in 2011, the bank started demanding his parents repay the debt. Inspired by Ryan's campaign to Key Bank, Alecha started a petition on Change.org asking Wells Fargo to forgive the loans -- click here to join her in asking Wells Fargo to forgive her dead nephew's student loans.
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