Carpenter Who Grew Up Poor Leaves Behind $3 Million Dollars To Pay For 33 Kids To Go To College

ABC - A carpenter from Iowa, who owned two pair of jeans and an old rusty truck, paid for 33 strangers to get a college education, according to KCCI.

Dale Schroeder was a simple man. He grew up poor. He never went to college. He never got married. He worked at the same business for 67 years.
“He was that kind of a blue-collar, lunch pail kind of a guy,” Schroeder’s friend Steve Nielsen said. “Went to work every day, worked really hard, was frugal like a lot of Iowans.”

When Schroeder died in 2005, he did not have any descendants. What he did have was a pair of work jeans, a pair of church jeans, a rusty Chevrolet truck and a desire to help small town kids in Iowa go to college.

“He wanted to help kids that were like him that probably wouldn’t have an opportunity to go to college but for his gift,” Nielsen said.

Over his nearly 70 years of carpentry work and frugal living, Schroeder had amassed nearly $3 million in savings.

Those people got together 14 years after the death of a man they never met. They all gathered around Schroeder’s old lunch box and talked about the difference he made in their lives.

Dale’s Kids all finished college without debt, but there was one string attached.

“All we ask is that you pay it forward,” Nielsen said. “You can’t pay it back, because Dale’s gone. But you can remember him and you can emulate him.”

Incredible story.

I really hope Dale lived a great life because anybody as giving as him deserves it. It’s just tough to imagine not having anybody to share any of this with so to see that somebody can come out on the other end as such a giving person is just amazing.

I do wonder if people ever busted his balls about him being cheap though. Everybody has friends that you make wisecracks at because they have alligator arms, but just imagine if they ever ended up doing something like this when they passed away. Would stop you dead in your tracks.

Great for these 33 kids who were handed such an amazing gift. Hope they pay it forward just like Dale wanted.