How $80 became a life lesson
It all started with $80 in a dead woman’s purse.
That’s all Kristina Ulmer had left of her younger sister.
Katie Amodei died in a car crash on October 12, 2014. She was 29 years old.
Ulmer wanted this remnant of Katie’s last night — her final earnings as a waitress — to go toward something good. But what should that be? For four years, Ulmer debated. And she added to the funds: a few hundred from selling a Chromebook and some more from her savings as a ninthgrade English teacher at Hatboro-Horsham High School.
Last winter, as she discussed the book Fahrenheit 451 with her students, it struck her: “What if I could use the money in my class to teach kids to be kind to one another?”
“I wanted my students to experience doing something kind for a stranger and understand that they’re connected with others,” Ulmer, 36, said.
It’s something Katie did all the time — from her charity runs to her certification as an EMT just months before her death, working to save strangers’ lives.
Ulmer gave each of her 26 students $20 and instructed them to help someone in need or perform a random act of kindness.
“We were all shocked when she pulled out all that money and handed it out,” said Eric Bromberg, a 15-year-old student in Ulmer’s class. “That’s not a type of project teachers do.”
Ulmer told her students about the time a customer ahead of her in line at Starbucks paid for her morning coffee. It was just a $3 drink, but it made her day.
Inspired, Bromberg decided to make someone else’s day. He visited Lancers Diner, a staple for Horsham teens, and ordered a milkshake. When the bill came, he left the $20 as a tip for the waitress, with a note that read, “Happy new year. Spread kindness.”
He never expected to feel such pride and joy in giving away $20.
Maci Lumpkin, 15, felt that rush when she donated the $20 to the school’s library to cover other students’ fines. The money cleared eight students’ debt, including four seniors who would not have been able to graduate with outstanding fines.
Sabrina Ibrahim, 15, created care packages for soldiers, hoping to spread the kindness beyond her personal community.
Other students bought fabric and sewed pillowcases to donate to people undergoing chemotherapy in the hospital. Some paid for people in line behind them at cafes and pizza shops. One student gave away free doughnuts on the street. Another bought sanitary pads for a homeless woman.
Ulmer has received anonymous donations that allowed her to repeat the project with a new class this semester and will do so again in the fall. She’s set up a fundraising page to keep the project going beyond that.