As the members of the Flock Sunday school class at First Presbyterian Church of Greenville left class they were given an envelope that said simply Merry Christmas.
Inside was a letter that began, “Please accept this gift from my wife and me as a dedication of love and duty to our Lord Jesus Christ.”
It went on to talk about hard times and how much they wanted others to share the blessings God had given them. The author, who did not reveal his name, hoped class members would use the gift themselves if needed, help another family, grant an impoverished child’s Christmas wish or support a missionary.
The envelope contained five $100 bills so crisp one member said they looked like they had just been printed. There were 50 envelopes, one for each couple. That amounted to $25,000 from someone who did not want to be thanked, did not want publicity. Just wanted to sit back and watch the magic unfold.
Denton Burnette, as coordinator of the gift giving, is one of the few people who knows the donor’s identity.
“They could have easily written a check for $25,000, but they wanted to get other people involved, to make it more personal,” he said.
And personal it has been. Some in the class, facing their own misery with lost jobs or other problems, paid bills or bought Christmas for their children. One woman took her child out for a Mexican dinner, the first time in a year they’d been able to eat out. And they even ordered queso sauce.
One gave money for dishes and clothes to a woman whose mobile home had burned down. Another gave the $500 to Safe Harbor, the shelter for abused women, and was able to get his company to not only match the amount but also to double it – $1,500 for a more than worthy organization.
An 11-year-old boy got a bicycle, helmet and Pittsburgh Steelers gym bag. An unemployed father was able to buy presents for his children.
Fifty times over and more. A gift. More often than not, parents said the exercise had a profound impact on their children, who played a big role in deciding where the money should go and in giving it out when the time came.
“We’re always telling children to do things,” said John Stelling. “I’m glad my children saw me doing something.”
Stelling’s wife Robin and daughter Carlisle bought $130 in groceries for a classmate’s family. Then he took $300 to Triune Mercy Center for three homeless families. He also gave up all the jackets and sweatshirts he had in his trunk from this promotional products company.
He put some money in the collection plate at church. And the last $10 he used to buy McDonald’s hamburgers for the people who live under the Pete Hollis Highway bridge. He and his daughter as well as a friend and his daughter went down there with a truckload of firewood they had cut and the bag of burgers.
There were four or five tents, a makeshift stand and a handful of people. One guy approached Stelling. They talked about their lives.
“He revealed his situation to me and that hit home,” Stelling said.
The man had been a classmate more than two decades before at Wade Hampton High School. They had algebra together.
“He was ahead of me intellectually and from an academic standpoint,” Stelling said.
On that December day, the economic divide could not have been greater. But as men, they met as equals beside that railroad bed, one reaching out to the other because someone else had reached out first.
