School

I am a substitute teacher and teacher's aide; I work solely at a local elementary school, either in regular ed, or more often with special ed students. It's a school of about 500-600 students, many of which are in low-income families, and I'm there so often that some of the students think I'm regular staff!

So I go to school one day for no special reason and get into a conversation with the counselor there. She tells me of a student who's from a particularly challenging family situation and it dawns on me that I could help this family out. I ask the counselor what she thinks would be helpful to that family, and I end up writing a long list of needs this family has. I get the fun of going around to the different places, such as utility companies or grocery store or department store and either paying bills up to date or buying groceries or clothes and even purchasing gift cards. The counselor has told me about the children in the family--their interests and their abilities--as well as what the parents like to do and would probably want to have, and based on that information, I end up back in school with loads and loads of packages, bags full of items, and an envelope with several gift cards. I leave these items with the counselor and ask her not to reveal my identity to the family.

And I am able to have all this joy and happiness in giving because I HAVE A ROOM FULL OF MONEY!