Secret Santa spreads wealth
By Nanci Hellmich
USA Today
NEW YORK — There were lots of miracles on 34th Street last week, and one of them was James Frazier.
The Macy's security guard, a new father at 19, was standing at his post at the famous intersection of Seventh Avenue and 34th Street when a man with white hair and a gray beard handed Frazier a crisp $100 bill.
Frazier looked dumbfounded at the money. "Is he Santa Claus?" he asked as the man disappeared into the crowd. "I believe in Santa Claus. I grew out of it when I was 10, but now I believe in Santa Claus."
The mystery man who doled out $100 bills all around Manhattan last week is a wealthy businessman from the Kansas City area who has been nicknamed Secret Santa in his hometown, where he has been doing this for 22 years. This year, he came to New York, where he thought his largess would offer some comfort to a wounded city.
Secret Santa gave dozens of New Yorkers $100 each, others received several hundred dollars, and a few got $1,000. At the end of three days, he gave away $25,000 of his own money. And then he headed back to Kansas City, where he gave away another $25,000 before Christmas.
His goal in both cities: to find and help "people who have that lost look in their eyes. There are certain people who are really in bad trouble and they need a lift," he says.
Once penniless and homeless himself, he knows that a little bit goes a long way with many people. "You'd have thought I just gave them a million dollars."
Most of Santa's gifts are random, but he did his homework and found out about families in dire need, including those who had lost their jobs because of the terrorist attacks, and gave them generous amounts.
As he went about his work, he didn't wear a Santa costume but instead sported a New York Police Department cap, a red flannel shirt and a photographer's vest with lots of pockets for his cash. For safety reasons, he was accompanied by two New York police officers.
Santa has always been anonymous and wants to keep it that way. Only his wife, children and a few close friends know who he really is.
He understands why people sometimes don't go to the government, churches or charities for assistance. "It's very embarrassing for any person to have to ask for help. You feel like a failure, a loser. And when you lose your self-esteem, that's when you start losing hope," he says.
Meager beginnings
Santa speaks from experience. As he tells it, his life story was colored by poverty. He was raised in a small town in Mississippi by his grandparents, who struggled to keep him fed and clothed. "When the soles of my shoes wore out, my grandmother put cardboard in the bottom of them," he says.
In late winter of 1971, Santa, then a young man, was working in the little town of Houston, Miss., as a door-to-door salesman. His company went out of business, and within a few days, Santa had no money for food, gas or the motel room he was renting.
He also had no family to turn to for help. So he went to a local church, where he was told that the person in charge was gone for the day and to check back tomorrow. "I was ashamed of being homeless. I was terribly embarrassed, and I didn't want anybody to know. I didn't go back."
For eight days, he slept in his car, he says. He didn't have a nickel to his name and hadn't eaten for almost two days when he went to the Dixie Diner and ordered a big breakfast. He sipped his coffee until the crowd thinned out, then acted like he had lost his wallet.
Then the owner of the diner, who also was the waiter and cook, came over near the stool where Santa had been sitting and picked up a $20 bill off the floor. "Son, you must have dropped this," the diner owner said.
"It was like a fortune to me," Santa says. "I said to myself, 'Thank you, Lord.' And my next thought was that 'I'd better go ahead and get out of here before the person who really dropped it comes back in.' "
He paid for the breakfast, left a tip, pushed his car to a gas station and headed west. On the way out of town, it dawned on him "that maybe nobody had dropped the money at all — maybe that fella just knew I was in trouble, and he helped me in a way that didn't embarrass me. I'd been praying for a few days before that, and right then I just made a little promise. I said, 'Lord, if ever you put me in a position to help other people, I will do it.' "
Within a year, he had packed all of his belongings into a suitcase and headed to Kansas City on a bus. He struggled for years to make a living. He got married and had children. "I borrowed money to start a business and sweated blood to pay it back," but it failed, he says. A second business, however, was successful.
It was 1979 when he made good on his promise to help those less fortunate. On a cold, snowy day around Christmas in Independence, Mo., he stopped at a drive-in and ordered a hamburger and soft drink. He gave the carhop a $50 bill and said, "Keep the change."
"You're kidding," she said.
"No, ma'am, Merry Christmas," he said.
She started sobbing and said, "Sir, you have no idea what this means to me."
It felt so wonderful that Santa went directly to the bank, got some more cash and started giving it away, he says.
For a few years, he didn't tell a soul what he was doing, not even his wife and children. Now, his family is in on it, and he and his wife budget how much they can afford to give away. In the past 22 years, he figures, he has given away hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Whoever's in need
Santa says he has no rigid guidelines for who receives the money. He sometimes identifies a few people from social services agencies, police officers and firefighters, but much of the money he gives away to people he sees on the street, in diners, laundromats, pawnshops, fast-food chains and other places.
"It's easy to find people who are in need, because a coin laundry or pawnshop is the last place they want to be on Christmas Eve," he says. It doesn't have to be a homeless person, he says. "Sometimes it's people who have a job, but they are really struggling."
Although he distributes money all year, Christmas is his favorite time of year. Of the hundreds of people he has helped, a couple stand out in his mind:
• He once walked into a house in Kansas City where a grandmother was struggling to raise 10 grandchildren. She had just called the kids downstairs to tell them there wasn't going to be a Christmas. Then he arrived and gave them $3,000.
• In 1999, he returned to Houston, Miss., and found the owner of the Dixie Diner who had given him $20. Santa said at the time that $20 seemed like $10,000 to him, so he gave the elderly gentleman (whose wife was ailing) $10,000.
Incredible reactions
As Santa moved about the Big Apple, some people were skeptical when they received the $100 bills. Others were in a state of disbelief. One woman went to a police officer and tried to give the money back.
"Is this real?" asked Rose Ann Marina, 33, a mother who was strolling down 34th Street with her 9-month-old son, Christopher. "It's incredible. No one has ever given me money before. I never even find money."
Pamela Kramer, a 38-year-old homeless woman, literally jumped up and down with joy. She plans to use her $100 to start looking for an apartment. John Donnelly, 66, a homeless man, was equally stunned. "It's a miracle. God bless you," he said as Santa walked away.
Santa isn't surprised by the incredible reactions he gets. "It's something that never happened to them before," he says. "It restores some faith in humanity."
But he hopes other people realize they can also do something like this by showing appreciation or leaving a little extra tip.
"I've lived the story, so I know it's definitely more blessed to give than receive, because it comes back to you many, many times over," he says.
