As the school janitor, Ricky Spalding is used to cleaning up messes, but he got the surprise of his life when he was called into the gymnasium at Anderson county high school one day after a spillage. Spalding didn’t think anything of it as he wanted to clear out the trash, but what he found blew him away.
Spaulding has worked for the Anderson county schools district for several years. The custodian went to the high school himself and previously coached the disc golf team there. His wife of 33 years lisa is also employed as a secretary for the educational institution.
Anderson county high school is located in Lawrenceburg Kentucky between 2014 and 2015 there were 1153 students enrolled in the school. In particular, the institution is recognized for its successful basketball training program. Indeed, former students have gone on to become college athletes and even part of the nba. The spauldings have three sons: jacob jordan and jiren, as well as four grandchildren.
Jacob has daughters, madeleine and harper, and a baby son with his wife, Tracy lynn and Jordan recently welcomed his first child with his wife Lena a baby girl named Addison in 2014. Jacob was living in italy and that’s because the couple’s son was in the navy. He had been stationed in the European country for three years, but the 10-hour flight time, on top of the cost of air travel, meant that it was difficult for Jacob’s parents to get to see him.
Although Spaulding had spent time with his eldest grandchild madeleine and was present at her birth, things were very different when harper arrived. In fact, she was already two months old in june 2014 and her grandfather had not yet had the chance to meet her.
In fact, he hadn’t seen his son jacob in more than 12 months when staff at the high school got wind of spaulding’s family situation. They wanted to do something to help out, so they came up with a plan and enlisted the nearly 1200 pupils to help put it into action. Then, on the final day of the school year, they held a pep rally. The assembly didn’t raise any suspicions for the custodian. After all, the girls softball team had just become the first to ever, get through to the state competition.
So, as the students and educators gathered together in the sports hall, Spalding had no idea what was about to happen, then Spalding was summoned into the room to help with a cleanup job. Chris glass, the high school principal, said into a microphone the principal directed Spaulding towards a garbage can, after he arrived with his mop and bucket, he must have
expected to find a mess inside, but then the crowd began to cheer the janitor opened the bag of what He thought was trash and couldn’t believe his eyes. The trashcan held a load of cash that the students had secretly collected. In addition, Spalding also received a check in total. The pupils and faculty had come together to raise 1900 to go towards a trip to italy to see his son and meet his new grandchild.
Ricky’S. Just such a great guy, that’s hard not to you know, give to his cause glass, told kentucky’s lex 18 news. He does everything for the school he’s very, very nice and whenever somebody needs something he’s there as a janitor who knows the ins and outs of the district, it was a surprise to spalding that everyone managed to hide this for so long. I was shocked. He told yahoo’s trending now site and the bad thing about it is my wife was in on this as well.
The custodian’s wife Lisa called the gesture, a miracle and admitted how touched she was that everyone wanted to give back to Spalding. I just think it’s awesome that high schoolers and the school here it just shows how caring they are, and i just think that’s amazing.
She told the news station hlm, the popular janitor added words can’t describe the joy that i feel right now. It wasn’t long before Jacob. Also found out the happy news after seeing a Facebook post, i skyped with my son that afternoon and he said dad.
I heard you had a pretty good day today. I said yeah, it was a pretty good day. Spalding recalled to yahoo news the custodian added. I was just absolutely speechless when i think of the generosity of the students and the staff here. Just for me just overflowing with emotion.
The couple soon made arrangements to travel to Italy and Spalding revealed that they planned for it to be a whole family thing. The entire family managed to get together in the united states. That summer, then, the following year, the janitor shared photos from his overseas trip on Facebook.
Indeed, Spalding posed for pictures cuddling his two granddaughters, as well as doing some sightseeing, including visiting the coliseum in rome, when spalding’s heartwarming story appeared online and on local news outlets. The school’s generosity clearly touched people great stories and a good deeds for someone who works in one of the least appreciated and most necessary jobs.
One commenter wrote another agreed nice to see that these students actually care. The support staff sounds like a great bunch of kids and a wonderful relationship with Mr Spalding others claim.
The story gave them hope and served as an important reminder to show gratitude to those that do their part to help others. So often we forget about those who work behind the scenes, or in this case, even right in front of us one person shared. It is fantastic that the school recognized all of his hard work, and hopefully, they have a great time in italy.
Spalding, who recently reunited with the whole family ahead of the 4th of July holiday, still works at Anderson, county high school, and while it has been a few years since his big surprise, what the staff and students did for him is something he’ll. Never forget we’re very blessed the custodian told yahoo news.