Fifth-Graders Surprise Strangers With $100 Bills in a Heartwarming Secret Santa Project
A class project turned into a $9,000 kindness mission that brought joy to shoppers in need
“Watch this!” Derek Brown said to his class as he clicked on another CBS clip from On the Road with Steve Hartman. For two years, he had been playing the videos of folks performing acts of kindness for his fifth-graders at Alhambra Traditional School in Phoenix.
Feeling inspired, Derek reached out to Hartman’s team and was thrilled when the host came for an in-person visit.
And then, Derek had an idea: Why don’t we do acts of kindness?
Suddenly, Derek recalled a favorite On the Road story about an older man who dons a seasonal red cap and hands out $100 bills to random strangers shopping at Christmastime.
That’s it! We’ll do a surprise project, he decided. We’ll call it Operation Secret Santa!
During the fall of 2023, Derek reached out to 18 students and told them the plan.
“Are you in?” Derek asked.
They all agreed: “Let’s go!”
Kids recruited family and friends to support the project, and a GoFundMe account raised $6,500. Derek reached out to the original Secret Santa from the video, who also eagerly agreed to participate.
In early December, he came to town for the Secret Santa day, where he talked to the kids, pulled out a wad of $100 bills and handed them out.
Between the donations and the $100 bills, they raised a total of $9,000 to give away.
With their fresh $100 bill in hand and donning red hats, Derek took the kids out to grocery stores, thrift stores and dollar stores. They looked for signs that any shopper may be struggling.
The kids approached their chosen recipients, introduced themselves and handed them the $100 bill.
Surprised recipients were overwhelmed by their kindness! And before long, Derek’s Secret Santa project got its own story on the Hartman show last year.
This year, Derek plans to do it again, on a larger scale with more money, more participants and on more days.
For Derek, it’s a privilege to teach kids about the power of kindness. Twelve-year-old Carissa Cheong recalls meeting a woman named Rosemary, who told her she’d lost her job. They handed her two $100 bills, and Rosemary wept.
“When you see them happy, you’re happy too,” says Carissa.
“The kids felt emotions you would have never thought could come out of these kids,” Derek says. “They love it. There is no better feeling in the world!”
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