Brighten Your Day

Former Homeless Man Donates $10,000 To High School After Two Students Helped Him In A Blizzard

March 28, 2016

Three years ago, two seniors at Dwight Township High School in Dwight, Illinois, helped a homeless man walking in a blizzard with no jacket.

The students – Ryan Kodat and Luke Arnold – gave the man clothes, a jacket and money for a train ticket to Springfield so he could see his father. The man's father later passed away.

Unbeknownst to the man, Wade Herter, his father left behind an estate of $1.2 million. Herter has since moved to Santa Monica, California, but not without sending a gift to Dwight High School.

On Feb. 26, the school received a letter from Herter and a donation of $10,000.

The Superintendent, Dr. Richard Jancek, asked the board to consider giving two students, in each graduating class for the next 10 years, $500 awards for acts of humanitarianism. The board gladly agreed and soon the school will post on its website an application form for students to apply for the awards.

But the lasting impression from the good deed that started all of this, according to Jancek, is that Kodat and Arnold expected nothing in return.

Jancek spoke to Kodat recently.

"He said, 'You don't have to put my name on anything. We did it because it was the right thing to do, not to get an award. If the same thing happened tomorrow, we'd do it again'."

(h/t) Morris Herald News