- Tears
welled up in Christina Thomas' eyes on Thursday
when she was visited by
Secret Santa, who gave her $5,000. Thomas lost
her husband to a cave-in
last fall. Her house burned down a month later.
Amanda Green went to
work Thursday at a Liberty gas and convenience store,
fretting about
her landlord's plans to evict her and her two children.
-
- She had just charged a customer 52 cents
for hot chocolate
when a jolly man in a red flannel shirt darted inside
her Conoco store
on Missouri 152.
-
- "I had $15 in gas," said the man, who thrust
a $100
bill toward Green. "Why don't you keep the change."
-
- "You're not serious," Green
replied as the
man headed for the door.
-
- "Sir!" she yelled, waving his $85 above her
head.
-
- "Keep it," the
man said as he disappeared into
the frigid winter air.
-
- Tears welled in Green's eyes. She stared
after him and
swallowed.
-
- Another customer approached.
-
- "You ready for Christmas?" the customer asked
before
sliding Green another $100. "Have a merry one."
-
- "Oh, my gosh," Green said.
"What is going
on?
-
- Green had just been helped by Secret Santa and one of
his
elves.
-
- Secret Santa, a
successful Jackson County businessman
who wants to remain anonymous,
began handing out holiday cash 21 years
ago. It's his way of paying
back a kindness he received in the early 1970s,
when a Mississippi
diner owner helped him out of a tough spot.
-
- Before Thursday, Santa already had given away $7,000
this yuletide. He disbursed a few thousand more dollars Thursday and plans
to give away more today and Saturday.
-
- Green, who was late with her rent, feared her landlord
was
going to file an eviction notice Thursday. Although she was more than
$400 behind on that payment, she had used some money to buy Christmas
gifts
for her two children, ages 8 and 6.
-
- A few minutes after Santa and his elf left her store
Thursday, the front door jingled again, and Jackson County Sheriff Tom
Phillips stepped inside. Phillips often accompanies Secret Santa as he
drives through Kansas City neighborhoods, looking for people who need a
little Christmas cheer. This day, Santa was making a rare swing through
Liberty, where he'd already visited a widow in her apartment, bought a
$300 cola at a Sonic Drive-In and dished out $400 to people at a
coin-operated
laundry.
-
- "Is it true you are in a little trouble?" Phillips
asked Green, who nodded. Phillips handed her four more rolled-up
bills.
-
- "Merry
Christmas," Phillips said before darting
outdoors.
-
- Green unrolled the money. Each bill had
"100"
printed on it. Green burst into sobs. Her hands shook
so severely that
she was unable to ring up the next purchase, so she
asked a co-worker to
help.
-
- Handing out Ben Franklins has become a Secret Santa trademark,
earning him the nickname "hundred-dollar-bill man."
-
- "I get a whole lot more out of it
than I give,"
Santa said on his lunch break. "I hope they
don't pass a law against
it."
-
- Driving a salt-encrusted red "sleigh" through
Kansas
City, Independence, Liberty and Blue Springs, he watched for places
frequented by the poor.
-
- Inside
a Liberty coin-operated laundry, a mother with
a bandaged hand played
Battleship with her 12-year-old son. Santa slipped
each $100.
-
- Another woman, Judy Libbert, thought the
money was a
joke. When she figured out it was real, she wanted to give
Santa a hug.
But he was already gone.
-
- "There's a friend of mine who doesn't have a family
to spend Christmas with," Libbert said. "I'm going to take her
to lunch."
-
- In Kansas City,
a family of three received $300. "We
couldn't ask for a better
Christmas," the father, Corey Cornejo, said
after giving his wife
a kiss. "God bless him."
-
- At a small diner, all customers and employees received
$100
each.
-
- "If you don't need
it, give it to somebody else
who does," Santa told them.
-
- Waitress Donna Edwards clutched her chest.
"I'm
having a heart attack," said Edwards, who had planned to
ask her boss
for a loan Thursday so she could finish her Christmas
shopping.
-
- Near 17th and McGee
streets, Santa spotted a man in a
wheelchair who was pushing himself,
backward, up the street with one foot.
Santa handed him $400.
-
- "I heard about this guy," said
the man, Norman
Anders, who receives $477 monthly in disability
payments but has been staying
at a homeless shelter. "I can get an
apartment now. I'm going to stay
off the street. Thank you from the
bottom of my heart."
-
- Secret Santa enjoys the season as much as young children
enjoy
it. He woke up excited Thursday at 4:12 a.m., nearly two hours before
his alarm was to sound. So he got up and headed for the computer.
-
- He wanted to do something special for his
first "victim,"
Christina Thomas, whose husband died in a
trench collapse in October. A
month later, Thomas lost nearly
everything in a house fire.
-
- Friends at the Kansas City Fire Department had told Santa
about
Thomas. Santa decided to award her a certificate naming her a "John
Tvedten Angel," in honor of the Kansas City battalion chief who died
inside a burning building in 1999.
-
- He invited three firefighters to join him for the visit.
Inside
Thomas' small Liberty apartment, the firefighters choked up as Santa
read the certificate and told Thomas she had the "responsibility to
pass on kindness to others in the same spirit it is given to
you."
-
- They had no idea
Santa was going to do that.
-
- Then Santa opened a white envelope and handed Thomas
$5,000.
-
- Her chin quivered. A
tear rolled down her left cheek.
-
- "This is overwhelming," she said as her 11-month-old
son, Dakota, watched. "It will help me cope with everything that has
happened.
-
- "Thank you.
Thank you so much."
-
-
- Donna McGuire
<dmcguire@kcstar.com All content ©
2000
The Kansas City Star
-
-
-
- MainPage
http://www.rense.com
-
-
-
- This
Site Served by
TheHostPros
|