{"id":221019,"date":"2026-06-17T03:16:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T03:16:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/221019\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T03:16:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T03:16:12","slug":"septa-employee-surprises-student-with-graduation-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/221019\/","title":{"rendered":"SEPTA employee surprises student with graduation card"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (WPVI) &#8212; Bill Vanish has been working for SEPTA for 40 years. He spent 35 years as a train driver before becoming a station assistant.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Every morning, he greets familiar faces like Central High School student Elana Maser.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The two became friends over the past four years. And as Maser&#8217;s graduation date grew closer, Vanish surprised her with a card.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Maser was so overjoyed that she felt compelled to write him a card back.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">This exchange of acts of kindness culminated on Maser&#8217;s graduation day at The Kimmel Center. Vanish was there to congratulate her after the ceremony.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">They further shared words of encouragement and took photos together on Broad Street.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Maser plans to attend the University of Pennsylvania in the fall. Meanwhile, Vanish is preparing for a new chapter of his own. He plans to retire in the summer of 2027.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Watch the video above to see what this experience meant to them.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \"><a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/6abc.com\/videoClip\/19058101\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">RELATED: &#8216;Our Community Salutes&#8217; honors over 100 military enlistees in South Jersey<\/a><\/p>\n<p>More than 100 military enlistees from South Jersey were recognized by &#8216;Our Community Salutes,&#8217; an organization dedicated to being &#8216;the first to say thank you.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p><br class=\" \"\/><\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026 WPVI-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (WPVI) &#8212; Bill Vanish has been working for SEPTA for 40 years. He spent 35 years&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96243,20523,14704,22947,69,71,70,7625,2618,6984],"class_list":["post-221019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-act-of-kindness","tag-card","tag-employee","tag-graduation","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-philly","tag-septa","tag-student"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}