School Collects Gifts, $1,700 For Secretary After Burglars Ransack Home
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A Joliet public school secretary had a run-in with a real-life Grinch, and a group of Good Samaritans, all within a 24-hour period in the last few days.
On Thursday night, when Evette Durham returned home from coaching basketball at T.E. Culbertson School, she found her place had been ransacked. All her family's electronics, game systems, jewelry, and cash had been taken; not to mention gifts Durham had bought for needy kids at her school.
"It's just a very upsetting thing, considering she was trying to get all these gifts and things for people of need; and, while she's doing that, somebody is taking her things," Culbertson teacher Mariann Homerding said.
So, Homerding and others at the school took up collections at the school, and some teachers even called their own parents for donations.
The next day, they asked Durham to come to the school in the afternoon, when they gave her some gifts and an envelope she was told she could open at home, if she wished.
Durham said she "was shocked" when she arrived home and found about $1,700 in the envelope. All of it had been collected in less than a day after the burglary, and on the last day of classes before the start of winter break.
"When I got home, I opened it, and I was very shocked, and very surprised by what they had collected for me," she said. "I was like, 'Wow. Wow.' My son was sitting there with me, and I'm like 'God is replacing what was taken.'"
Podcast
Durham said it also showed her how much her co-workers love her.
"It was a way of letting me know, just as I care, others care for me also," she said.
She'll still host Christmas at her home, it will just be more low-key than originally planned.
"It [the burglary] puts somewhat of a damper on it [Christmas], but the main thing is that none of us was hurt," she said.
