Inspired by a popular CBS News story about a wealthy businessman who distributes money around Christmas,

a Phoenix elementary school teacher started a ‘Secret Santa Club’ to teach kids about the importance of compassion and generosity.

Although teacher Derek Brown utilizes the Steve Hartman part from ‘On the Road’ as a teaching aid, students have always responded most favorably to the Secret Santa narrative.

Nicholas Talamantes, a student, spoke for the class and said he couldn’t believe somebody did this kind of thing.

Brown therefore formed a giving gang out of the pupils for the 2023 Christmas season, outfitting them in red plaid shirts and caps,

and gave them instructions to call nearby businesses and organizations to solicit donations for their own Secret Santa project.

Brown told CBS News, ‘I want this memory to be so strong that it now drives them every day, in everything they do.’

They then located the most vulnerable citizens in the city, such as a local who had lost their job for a week

or another who had just received a cancer diagnosis, and they gave them a big smile along with $100 in cash.

Undoubtedly motivated by the same encouragement that their own show provided to the Secret Santa Club,

CBS News documented as many of these encounters as they could, and even via the news cameras, the appreciation is evident.

But the act of giving itself was the gift for the students.

‘I’ve never felt this way in my life,’ said Carissa Cheong, a student and club member. ‘So, in a way, this changed my life.’

Speaking to Steve Hartman directly, Evangeline D’Agostino, a younger student, expressed it as plainly as Socrates or Plato.

‘The gift to you is their joy,’ she remarked.