Teacher's appeal to fulfill students’ Christmas wishes gets overwhelming responses from strangers

Christmas is not just about decorations and parties but also about the joy of giving. Some charitable organizations realize that irrespective of social status, every kid deserves to experience Christmas joy and make their wishes come true. The staff at Desert Pines High School in Las Vegas were also involved in being the unsung heroes for impoverished kids over the last decade. Cheri Guy (@attagirlguy), an English teacher at this school, was one such humble Santa who made the kids' wishes come true as strangers came forward to help in response to her emotional TikTok video, as reported by TODAY.

Every year, the school runs a program called "Wishmas," in which students write down the one thing they would like to get as a Christmas gift and why it is so important to them. The members of the faculty and the community come together to grant those wishes. But this year, Guy made the program quite popular through her TikTok video and she wrote, "Even if you can’t help, maybe you can share." Introducing her followers to the "Wishmas" initiative, Guy got too emotional while reading out the things that the students asked for. Their requests were too simple like slippers to protect their feet from cold, a guitar, a bag of Takis so that they wouldn't be hungry, restaurant gift cards, a Manchester City scarf, a textbook, a yearbook and so on.

What moved the English teacher was that some of these wishes were not even meant for the students themselves but for their family or friends. "Maybe we could do something to try to make some of these things happen. Because there’s no way - even if all the teachers if we all picked one student, we couldn’t cover everything. There are so many students and they don’t want a lot," said Guy in her video. Talking to the publication about the students, the teacher said, "We have a lot of kids who are in the foster system, we have a lot of kids who are living in poverty. These kids are facing enormous stress outside of the classroom." Little did she expect that her followers would make such an overwhelming gesture for these kids. "We have well over 300 wishes granted, which is amazing," Guy told the channel. With the help of some volunteers, Guy is getting the gifts wrapped and ready to be sent out before December 15.

The Jaguar Academy that Guy teaches in the school has students who can't meet academic and social expectations. Talking about the gifts received, Guy said, "One of the most incredible things about Wishmas is these kids are realizing that they are loved - not just by the staff at school, but by strangers around the country who care about them and believe in them." Guy's classroom has a sign that says, "One person can change a world." The teacher believes that every individual must take a small step so that the collective result can be bigger. "It used to say, 'One person can change the world,' but I changed it to 'a world,' because it’s not about changing the whole world. That’s what overwhelms us," she said and added: "But if you can just think about, 'What can I do for one person?' That’s changing a world - and if we could all do that? Just imagine what our society would turn into."