“An Alabama farmer spent some of the little money that he had to help members of his community to pay for their medical bills. Not even Hody Childress’s family members knew about his generosity until shortly before his death at the age of 80 on January 1.
The revelation about his acts was first revealed to many at his January 5 funeral, after the town’s pharmacist told family members.
Childress’s daughter Tania Nix told The Washington Post that she didn’t know what prompted her father to go to Geraldine Drugs in Geraldine, Alabama, a town of around 900, each month and give $100 to the pharmacist to help those struggling.
Nix did speculate that when her mother struggled with multiple sclerosis, her medical bills and drugs were expensive. Her mother, Peggy, passed away in 1999. He began his altruistic tradition in 2012.
Nix said that a woman recently wrote to her to tell her that Childress’s money allowed her to afford an EpiPen for her son, while another said that she burst into tears in the store when she was told that there was a fund that would help her to pay for her and her daughter’s prescription.
The pharmacist at the drug store, Brooke Walker said that Childress told her when he first handed over the money: ‘Don’t tell a soul where the money came from – if they ask, just tell them it’s a blessing from the lord.’
Nix said that a woman recently wrote to her to tell her that Childress’s money allowed her to afford an EpiPen for her son, while another said that she burst into tears in the store when she was told that there was a fund that would help her to pay for her and her daughter’s prescription.
The pharmacist at the drug store, Brooke Walker said that Childress told her when he first handed over the money: ‘Don’t tell a soul where the money came from – if they ask, just tell them it’s a blessing from the lord.’
The pharmacist told a family member that she didn’t let Childress’s donation go on painkillers, only antibiotics and life-sustaining medication.
On two occasions she used the money for non-medical reasons, once to help a woman who was in an abusive relationship to get back on her feet and once to help an elderly man who was caring for his special needs son and his wife, who had broken her hip, to pay for a used washer and dryer.
Nix told WaPo that her father told about his donations as he became gravely ill with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease over the holidays.
She said: ‘He told me he’d been carrying a $100 bill to the pharmacist in Geraldine on the first of each month, and he didn’t want to know who she’d helped with it — he just wanted to bless people with it.’
Jay Withey, 27, feared he was going to die entombed in his car where he had been forced to sleep with two strangers after his truck got stuck in the brutal snowstorm.
After a series of rejections to seek shelter, Withey returned to his truck which quickly ran out of gas, it was then the unsuspecting hero identified others stranded and decided to break into a nearby school.
Dubbed ‘Merry Christmas Jay’ Withey and his crew, including seven senior citizens, waited out the storm which has so far taken the lives of at least 40 people, that number set to rise.
‘I walked to the houses to see if I could find shelter, any house that had lights on. I had $500 that I was offering, to sleep on their floor,’ Withey told WBEN. ‘It’s the only time in my life I actually thought I was going to die.’
It was around 6am on Christmas Eve that Withey’s truck ran out of gas and the group had no other choice but to break into Pine Hill Primary Center.
‘Off to the left, I could see there was a school about 600-700 feet away from us. I knew the power would be on, there would be heat in there and I was guaranteeing there would be food in there,’ he said.
According to Cheektowaga Police Department, the group respectfully set up what they needed in the main area of the cafeteria, helping themselves to food to survive the treacherous weather system.
As the storm began to break late Christmas Day and everyone was ready to leave, ‘Merry Christmas Jay’ found the school’s snow blower and cleared all the vehicles that belonged to his group.
Withey then fixed the broken window they had used to get into the school using cardboard and duct tape leaving a note behind apologizing for breaking in.
‘To whomever it may concern, I’m terribly sorry about breaking the school window and for breaking in the kitchen,’ the letter states.
‘Got stuck at 8pm Friday and slept in my truck with two strangers just trying not to die. There were seven elderly people also stuck and out of fuel.
‘I had to do it to save everyone and get them shelter and food and a bathroom. Merry Christmas Jay.’
School officials and the police department were notified of the window breaking and after the roads were safe a police officer checked out the school and found the note which led them to view security camera footage.
Authorities posted a tweet thanking Withey for his ‘heroic actions.’
Ninikitty reports for NewsBreak that in the early morning hours on a Saturday in August, 2022, Officer Mark Knighten of Pelham Police Department, Alabama, saw a young black man sitting by the side of the road.
Knighten stopped to find out why.
The young man, Walter Carr, said that this was his first day of work at the Bellhops moving company in a location nearly 20 miles from his house, but his car had broken down the night before. This left him with only one option to get there: Walk.
So Carr left his house in Homewood at midnight, after sleeping for four hours, and began the trek to the home of the family he was going to help move.
Along the way, Carr sat down because his legs were hurting. That was when he was stopped by Officer Knighten. He told the officer that he had eight to 10 miles left to go in the journey and was determined to make it to his first day of work: “I didn’t want to defeat myself.”
Officers Carl Perkinson and Klint Rhodes pulled up shortly after. All three officers took the young man to breakfast.
At 6:30 a.m. Saturday morning, another officer, Scott Duffey, brought Carr to the home of Jenny Lamey, where Carr would help her family move.
Duffey told Lamey about Carr’s trek.
“My heart just stopped,” Lamey told ABC News. She said she offered Walter food and a couch to lie down on until 8:00 a.m. until the rest of the Bellhops crew arrived, but he insisted they get to work.
Lamey said she thought about his all-night walk and how he now would lift heavy boxes in the excruciating heat and it blew her away. “I burst into tears a couple times,” she said.
Lamey said she learned more that impressed her about Carr. He said he was supposed to be receiving his Associate’s degree later this year, and then he would be shipped off to boot camp with the Marines. When he was 5 years old, he and his mother lost their home in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina.
Lamey found a way to get in contact with Bellhops CEO, Luke Marklin. She shared the story on Facebook and set up a GoFundMe to raise money for Walter to fix his car.
But CEO Marklin had something else in mind. “Walter is incredible, and what he did is incredible,” Marklin told ABC News. “It’s everything our company stands for.”
Marklin drove from his home in Chattanooga, Tennessee, to Homewood, Alabama, to meet Carr for lunch in a hotel. Carr walked 30 minutes to meet Marklin.
When he arrived, the entire group — Marklin, Lamey and the police officers — were there and Marklin gave him the keys to the Ford Escape SUV he drove to Alabama. “Walter truly raised the bar,” Marklin said.
Lamey said her family will be inspired by him whenever they have tough times. “He’s like the poster boy for no excuses,” she said. “He’s just got this deep faith, he wasn’t alone.”
Walter Carr said he was so happy that he had touched people with his story and that he was blessed to bless others.
