DETROIT (WXYZ) — On a Tuesday afternoon near the end of the school year, Colin McConnell asked me to meet him at Amelia Earhart Elementary-Middle School in Detroit next to dozens of boxes.
I had to ask, "How did all of this come to be?"
McConnell replied, "I was a preschool teacher for years and I know a lot of times, teachers have to buy their own supplies and I wanted to do something to help them."
So McConnell did something he's really great at: he made a social media video.
McConnell, a Detroit resident, has a following of hundreds of thousands of people.
A person could do a lot of things with that, good and bad.
In this instance, McConnell chose to use it to introduce all of his followers to Amelia Earhart teacher Karen Turner, who is someone he heard of and reached out to because of a tip through a social media follower.
"She is a brain cancer survivor. Her son has autism and has to be supervised full time, mornings and nights," McConnell said.
All day, Turner works at Amelia Earhart dedicating herself to helping her students overcome learning obstacles.
She said that more than half of the students in each of her classes are more than three grade levels behind.
McConnell shared that with his followers and asked Turner to make an Amazon wishlist, which he posted at the end of his social media video.
McConnell asked us to meet him to see what would happen when Turner walked into the Amelia Earhart gymnasium to all of the middle school students cheering.
The mound of boxes was full of gifts donated from people across the country after hearing about Turner and her work from McConnell's social media video.
I asked Turner how she was feeling as she walked into the gymnasium.
She said, "Overwhelmed!"
Among the gifts were $500 worth of gift cards, brand new uniforms for the cheerleading team Turner started, boxes of school supplies, games, 200 backpacks and snacks that McConnell will use as incentives for the students in their school work.
Turner said she was most excited about the incentives.
She said all of the donations are incredible and will carry them through the next school year.
They're all made possible because of Turner's story, her work, the kindness of strangers and ultimately, McConnell, someone who was a stranger to the school just weeks ago and decided to use social media for good.
"A lot of times with social media, we just see all of the anger and sometimes, that’s what’s get in the press and seen all over," McConnell said. "But this shows that there are people all over the United States and all over the world that truly care and want to help others."
