After Teacher's Plea, Stranger Donates $250 Gift to 5 Year Olds
Photo by tmbg1/imgur
To bring her students’ lessons about farms to life, Lisa Hix needed some chickens. So the pre-Kindergarten teacher at Merry Oaks International Academy in Charlotte, North Carolina posted a request on Reddit. And thanks to one generous stranger, she was able to bring not just fowl but llamas, sheep, a donkey, and an entire barnyard’s worth of animals to visit the kids, who were “blown away.”
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“Many of my students come from other countries and have never seen any of these types of animals,” Hix wrote on her Reddit post last month, asking for anyone with chickens or roosters to bring them by the school to show the 4 and 5 year olds. “I also looked into a mobile petting zoo, but at 250 bucks and families with a very low socioeconomic background, we just can’t afford it.”
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Enter Redditor “caller-number-four,” a Charlotte IT specialist who prefers to simply use his first name, Tom. He’d seen firsthand through his schoolteacher sisters how difficult it can be to stock classrooms with the supplies they need, and to provide educational opportunities in struggling communities. Every summer he personally buys glue, notebooks, and art supplies to send them for their classrooms. So when he saw Hix’s request, it spoke to him.
Photo by tmbg1/imgur
“I knew it fit the mold of something I would be willing to help out on,” Tom tells Yahoo Parenting. “That, and I think every kid should get to be around barnyard animals. I grew up around them and they’re pretty awesome.”
Tom messaged Hix, who writes on Reddit, “Just like that he said he was going to cover the cost! It was unbelievable, but he was serious!…My coworkers and I were absolutely floored! It was such a seemingly small thing for this person to do, but such an absolutely huge and amazing thing for us to receive.”
Hix in her classroom. Photo courtesy of Lisa Hix
Hix tells Yahoo Parenting, “He understood how we sometimes struggle with finances in the classroom.” And Tom says that he understood the difference that his gesture could make. “I’m extremely fortunate to be able to say $250 isn’t a lot of money for me,” the do-gooder explains. “I know for many $250 is a huge sum. The fact that $250 went to educate 61 kids made it a no brainer.”
The students certainly got a lot of bang for his bucks. With the donation Hix was able to get Charlotte’s Darby Acres Farm to come to visit for an hour on Friday with the full “Barnyard Package,” consisting of chickens, chicks, ducks, pot bellied pig, baby goat, ferrets, bunnies, a llama and her week-old-baby, mini horse, donkey, and some sheep.
Photo by tmbg1/imgur
“They were so excited they almost couldn’t control themselves,” Darby Acres owner Jen Collins tells Yahoo Parenting of the creature meet-and-greet during which kids asked questions and then were able to walk around to touch each animal. “The kids were very happy. I saw lots of big smiles.” Their favorites? “The first class that visited liked the baby chicks most it seemed,” says Collins. “The second one loved the mini donkey.”
All of the animals, though, were a lasting treat for the kids. “You can learn so many wonderful things from animals,” says Collins. “Feeding them and taking care of them teaches some real life lessons.”
This experience has also taught Hix’s pre-K students about the generosity of strangers. “The impact this has made is immeasurable,” she tells Yahoo Parenting, after noting on Reddit that a few of the parents and grandparents who joined in the visit were moved to tears that someone would give the class this gift out of the blue. “The kids made cards and letters to thank ‘Mr. Tom’ and we actually used this example as a class lesson about thanking people when they do nice things and about how doing nice things can make you feel good when you do them. The kids have been taking his example to heart and I now have a class that is more gracious to each other and willing to help.”
The takeaway for Hix, however, is gratitude. “Being a teacher, it is very easy to feel as though you are not doing enough for your students (as most things you would like to do cost money, which is something not many of us have),” she writes. “And this was one of those times that I felt so grateful to be able to team up with a local community member to bring something to my students that they would NEVER get to see otherwise. I am so thankful…My faith in humanity is restored tenfold.”
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