A Phoenix elementary school teacher organized a "Secret Santa Club" to teach children about the value of kindness and giving, using a hit CBS News story of a wealthy businessman who gives out money around Christmas time as an inspiration.

Derek Brown, the teacher, uses the "On the Road" segment with Steve Hartman as a teaching tool, but it was the Secret Santa story that always resonated the most with students.

Speaking for the class, student Nicholas Talamantes remarked that he can't believe anyone does this sort of thing.

So, for the 2023 holiday season, Brown organized the students into a giving gang, wearing uniforms of red plaid shirts and caps, and instructed them to call local businesses and organizations to ask for money for their own Secret Santa project.

"I want this memory to be so strong that it now drives them every day, in everything they do," Brown told CBS News.

They then tracked down the people most in need in the city, like one resident who had been out of a job for 1 week, or another who had recently been diagnosed with cancer, and handed them a big smile with a side of $100 cash.

CBS News, no doubt inspired by the inspiration their own program gave to the Secret Santa Club, covered as many such interactions as possible, and the gratitude is palpable even through the news cameras.

For the students however, the gift was the giving itself.

"I never felt this way in my life," said student and club member Carissa Cheong. "So this was really a life changer for me."

Younger student Evangeline D'Agostino, speaking to Steve Hartman himself, put it as succinctly as Plato or Socrates.

"Their joy—that's the gift to you," she said.

Line about the true meaning of Christmas anyone?

WATCH the heartwarming video below… to those outside the US, watch HERE… 

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