Teacher Shares Students’ Christmas Wishes on TikTok and Gifts Start Pouring In

“Maybe spread this around,” she said. “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’s so many students and they don’t want a lot.”

As the internet sometimes does, it responded to Guy’s tearful pleas in a big way, and gifts started pouring into the school from complete strangers. This of course, moved Cheri Guy to tears once more. She told TODAY that 950 kids are participating in this year’s Wishmas, and that because of the kindness of strangers, “We have well over 300 wishes granted, which is amazing.”

She says that for these kids who have dealt with loss, trauma, and poverty in their childhoods, seeing strangers reach out with love and tangible gifts is invaluable.

“One of the most incredible things about Wishmas is these kids are realizing that they are loved — and not just by the staff at school, but by strangers around the country (who) care about them and believe in them,” she says.

She says all this kindness goes well with a sign that hangs in her classroom. It says: “One Person Can Change a World.”

“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 says. “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.”

The kindess of strangers is changing a whole lot of of worlds for some Las Vegas teens this Christmas, and I can only imagine the ripples that kindness will create for years to come. Hats off to Guy, her fellow teachers and staff, and all the strangers who are making Christmas wishes come true for some deserving teens this year!