Kind Math Teacher Gives Away COVID-19 Stimulus Check to Pay for Needy Students’ Utility Bills

A stimulus check in an illustration photograph. Illustration - Jason Raff/Shutterstock

A math teacher and his wife are inspiring community spirit after donating their COVID-19 stimulus checks to people who need the money more than they do.

Kent Chambers has taught math at Bob Jones High School in Madison, Alabama, for 34 years. His job, unlike millions of others, has remained safeguarded during the pandemic thus far. Knowing that some of his less privileged students’ families have not been so lucky, though, Chambers decided to help out.

Speaking to Good Morning America, Chambers explained that he and his wife, Pat, are both working from home during the lockdown but were nonetheless both entitled to receive a stimulus check. Their combined checks totaled $2,400.

“We felt like we should give back to someone,” Chambers said. “I wanted to help some of my students, if at all possible, and so that’s how it all began.”

The math teacher used $600 to pay off utility bills for three of his students whose families were struggling financially. Chambers covered two months’ worth of arrears and made the kind gesture anonymously, not wishing to be credited.

In addition to helping his students, Chambers and his wife decided to make a generous donation to the burn care center at a children’s hospital in Cincinnati, where the couple’s great-niece was taken care of after being injured in a house fire.

Pat used a portion of her check to purchase meal coupons for the YMCA; according to WNEM, she also pledged to continue paying her gym membership even though she is unable to use the facilities.

On April 24, 2020, the U.S. Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service announced that more than 88 million people had received stimulus payments, totaling nearly $158 billion. Eligibility is largely income-assessed, and the financial relief program excludes anyone earning over $99,000 per annum.

Chambers is not the only benevolent donor to give away his stimulus benefits. Elsewhere, in Cleveland, Ohio, attorney Rebecca Maurer has created the Cleveland Stimulus Pledge for those who can afford to to give their stimulus checks to needy organizations in northeast Ohio.

By the end of April, 2020, Maurer’s website had raised $60,000 in pledges.

“Just hearing people’s stories, it was very apparent to me that I was in a very lucky position and that I shouldn’t be treating the check as a windfall, but really as an opportunity to give back to my community,” Maurer explained, reports Fox 8.

“What we really wanted to show was the effect of collective donation,” Maurer continued. “Cleveland Stimulus Pledge was just a way to show what we could all do as a community together rather than as individuals.”

Another good Samaritan, Wendy Blackwell-Moore, of Maine, also started an online campaign for the benefit of her community: Pledge My Stimulus. “It’s not really my money, it’s our money,” Blackwell-Moore told Marketwatch. “So we need to make sure we get it into the right hands.”

The married mom of two pledged her own stimulus check to a non-profit, Main Access Immigrant Network, helping refugees and a number of local businesses in dire need of assistance to stay afloat.