Alabama Man Secretly Helped Pay Strangers' Prescriptions for Years: Hody Childress

- BBC News, 'Alabama man secretly helped pay strangers' prescriptions for years,' Jan. 20, 2023. - Ed.

- A farmer in a small US town kept an astounding secret from his family & friends. Then the truth emerged at his funeral - & the news has inspired the community.

The adage that charity begins at home has been enacted in the most uplifting way by the actions of one man. Hody Childress spent his whole life in Geraldine, Alabama, working as a farmer & an employee of the Lockheed Martin Space facility nearby. His family described him as a humble, God-loving man, who would often send handwritten get-well cards & share vegetables from his garden with neighbours. But even his family didn't know one big secret.

Every month, for nearly a decade, Mr Childress donated $100 (£80) to the local pharmacy for anyone who couldn't afford to pay for a prescription. Over the years, he gave nearly $12,000 to the community, but his generosity came with one condition: don't tell anyone. A long-held secret: Brooke Walker said she'd been the pharmacist at Geraldine's, the town drug store, for nearly 2 years when Mr Childress, who was a regular customer, asked her a question.

"He pulled me to the side & said, 'Do you ever have anybody that can't pay for their medication?' & I said, 'Well, yeah, unfortunately, that happens a good bit."

She said Mr Childress handed her a folded bill & said: "Next time that happens, will you use this? Don't tell where it came from, & don't tell me who needed it, just say it's a blessing from the Lord." Ms Walker later called Mr Childress to tell him how much his generosity meant to the customer it had helped. He thanked her & she said she ended the call feeling blown away by his generosity. She thought it would be a one-time kindness. But the next month, he came in & did the same thing.

"It continued every single month for almost 10 years," she said. "I never saw it lasting this long & he always said, 'Keep this between us.'"

A life-saving kindness: Eventually, his daughter, Tania Nix, had to be brought in on the secret. After battling illness for years, her father became unable to leave his home. But one day, he asked her for a favour. "He said, 'I've been doing something for a while & I would like to continue doing this,'" Ms Nix said. "He said, 'I want you to take a $100 bill up to the drugstore, at the first of the month, as long as I'm alive.'" The request didn't surprise her. As an Air Force veteran & a man of faith, she said her father cared deeply for his community & country & always sought to help others any way he could.

Mr Childress died on 1 January 2023. He was 80 years old.

Ms Nix initially had mixed emotions about sharing her father's secret but felt compelled to speak about his generosity at his funeral because it showed the kind of man that he was. Afterward, she said a staff member from the local high school approached her to say thank you. Her son had been prescribed an Epi-pen, but the family struggled to afford the $600 cost for the lifesaving shot of adrenaline. Mr Childress' generosity helped to cover the expense. "She said my dad could have possibly saved her son's life," said Ms Nix. News of her father's altruism quickly spread throughout the community & the media. After the story was reported in the Washington Post this week, Ms Walker said her pharmacy began receiving calls from the across the US from people wanting to help keep the fund going.

Ms Nix said it can often seem like the country is moving further apart, but her father's gesture has been a reminder of the importance of kindness and community. "People do care, and there's hope out there," she said. ---
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64354823
--------------------------

❤ - Also: 'The Guardian, 'Alabama town learns farmer secretly paid people’s pharmacy bills,' Jan. 20, 2023. - Ed.

- Hody Childress donated $100 a month for neighbors who couldn’t pay their prescriptions until his recent death -

A small town in Alabama is honoring a man who paid off his neighbors’ pharmacy bills for years & kept his generosity a secret until shortly before his recent death by picking up exactly where he left off. Hody Childress, a farmer & US air force veteran, began his anonymous charitable campaign when he walked into a drug store in his home town of Geraldine in 2012 & learned from the owner that sometimes families can’t afford to pay for their medicines. Childress, moved, responded by handing the owner $100 & telling her to save it for “anyone who can’t afford their prescription”, the local news outlet WVTM reported this month.

.. Childress went back to the pharmacy, which doubles as a meeting place for many of Geraldine’s 900 residents, monthly over the next decade or so, handing Walker a $100 bill each time for the same purpose & again imploring that she tell anyone who asked that it was simply “a blessing from God”. He contributed thousands of dollars to his fund at a pharmacy where members of his own family regularly visited without ever knowing what he was up to. It was enough to help 2 people a month who lacked insurance or adequate health benefits to cover their prescriptions, according to the Washinton Post.

Late last year, as he struggled to move around while fighting chronic obstructive pulmonary disease & other health problems, Childress sensed that he was approaching the end of his life. The 80-year-old, who once worked for the aerospace company Lockheed Martin, needed someone to take his customary $100 bill to Geraldine Drugs, & he entrusted the task to his daughter, Tania Nix. She carried out her dad’s request, telling Walker: “I was shocked – I had no idea that he was helping people at the drug store,” according to WVTM. Nix elaborated on the conversation in an interview with the Post.“He told me he’d been carrying a $100 bill to the pharmacist in Geraldine on the first of each month, & he didn’t want to know who she’d helped with it – he just wanted to bless people with it,” Nix, 58, reportedly said.

The heartbreaks Childress had endured made his philanthropy that much more meaningful to his daughter. He had lost his son, Butch, in 1973. He had also lost his first wife, Peggy, whom he would carry into the stands at local football games because she had multiple sclerosis, in 1999, WVTM reported. Childress died on 1 January, leaving behind his 2nd wife, Martha Jo, 2 children, 3 stepchildren & 15 grandchildren, among other survivors. Nix told those who gathered at his funeral last weekend about what her father would do at Geraldine Drugs. Word of Nix’s revelation spread around town, inspiring Childress’s family, friends & other admirers to start contributing to his fund to allow it to continue.

Geraldine Drugs pharmacist Heather Walker told WVTM that she could not think of a more fitting tribute to Childress.

“There are so many people in Geraldine who have lived longer because of Hody,” she reportedly said. “Hody was a true humble servant who will always be loved.” --- https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jan/20/alabama-farmer-secretly-paid-pharmacy-bills