Teacher Posted Salary. Then Came the Amazon Boxes

Elisabeth Milich wasn't exactly thrilled with her $35,000 salary in 2018 and made that known in a Facebook post. Still, the second-grade teacher at Phoenix's Whispering Wind Academy felt lucky: "I have my husband's income where I can buy [lunch] for kids that don't have lunch," even if "I can't buy a set of 20 paints," she tells Good Morning America. But she doesn't need paints now. Amazon packages filled with supplies have been arriving at Whispering Wind ever since a kind stranger heard about Milich's post, in which she gawked at needing a college degree for a job earning her $640 biweekly after taxes. Father of three Ben Adam reached out on Facebook before sending paints, books, colored paper, snacks, and more. Once Milich's classroom was stocked, he started sending supplies to five others at the school.

"I'm sensitive to the people that get the short end of the stick and without complaining," says Adam, who owns a real estate company in New York. "Teachers work very hard and don't get much in return." He hopes to extend the giving with his website ClassroomGiving.org. There, he shares the Amazon wish lists of teachers in Arizona, though he hopes to soon include teachers from other states. Unlike other sites with similar intentions, there's no crowdfunding aspect: Items can be purchased from Amazon and sent directly to classrooms. "It's like Christmas, you don't even know the excitement," Milich tells AZFamily.com, noting such purchases previously came out of her own pocket. "What an amazing blessing it is." As one student tells the Arizona Republic of Adam, "I think he is the nicest person ever." (More uplifting news stories.)