Texas teacher Sabrina Drude was getting ready for the new school year by buying some supplies at Walmart. Her shopping cart filled with hundreds of notebooks, pencils, and markers, she was anticipating some annoyed fellow shoppers as she made her way to the checkout line. What she got instead left her in tears.
As she began to check out, a man behind her in line, Lester Brown, started asking her some questions. Noticing that she didn’t have any children with her, he was curious as to why she would need so many school supplies.
Sabrina explained that she is a teacher at a middle school in a very low socioeconomic area in San Antonio and many of her students can’t afford the supplies they need, so she was purchasing the necessities for them.
Lester was so touched by what Sabrina was doing for her students that he offered to pay for everything in her cart. She thanked him but said she couldn’t accept his money.
As the $97 total came up on the cash register, though, Lester jumped between Sabrina and the cashier with money in hand.
“Put your wallet away,” he told Sabrina.
“I just started crying,” Sabrina said later. “That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”
When Sabrina asked Lester why he wanted to pay for the supplies, he told her, “Because teachers don’t get the recognition that they deserve.”
Throughout the year, many teachers spend quite a bit of their own money for the benefit of the students in their classes. Though they receive a $250 tax deduction, Sabrina said that doesn’t even put a dent into what they put into their classrooms.
As the school year begins, Sabrina plans to tell her class about Lester’s kind deed.
“This is exactly the type of person I want to influence my kids to be,” she said, adding that she plans to invite Lester to a class pizza party. “I want him to inspire my kids just like he inspired me; if any of my kids grew up to be half the man he is I’d be very proud.”
