Robert Goodman was desperate for help from his co-workers. The Florida teacher is battling colon cancer and was out of sick days to continue his treatment. That’s when he sent out a plea on Facebook and got a response that completely blew him away and highlights that there is still so much good in this world.
The Palm Beach Gardens Community High School teacher was diagnosed in April. He gets regularly scheduled chemo and had surgery in May, but he still has a long road to recovery. He was fortunate that he had enough sick days to carry him through the remainder of last school year.
“It just happened to coincide with when summer began too, so I had just enough (sick) days to make it through the surgery recovery and then I had to start chemo in June and throughout the entire summer,” Goodman said. “I have never had the energy for a full day.”
As the new school year approaches, his lack of sick days was weighing heavy on his mind. He had been teaching for 23 years, but no longer had a plethora of days accumulated because he used them last year as he started treatment. He needed twenty days to qualify for catastrophic sick leave and he just didn’t have them.
He took to Facebook to ask if any other teachers would consider donating sick days to him, as the school district allows.
“If I can get 20 more sick days from any teacher or district employee volunteers that would allow me to take more time to recover in battle through chemo for 12 weeks, which should be enough time for me to complete at least the treatment,” he wrote. “So if any of my teacher friends are out there, spread the word for me.”
The response was overwhelming and highlights how kind and generous Americans can be. It’s not simple to donate sick days. The donating teacher has to work for the district for 6 years and have accumulated 96 days. That limits quite a few people from donating. But within just four days, 75 days had been donated to Goodman!
Without this generosity, Goodman would have had to get chemo on Wednesdays and return to work on Thursday with a chemo pump for two days. Not only would this have been exhausting, but it would have made him more susceptible to catching a virus from a student. But, now he won’t have to worry about that as he is able to recover at home.
More information about this heartwarming story is below.
Our country was founded on Christianity and generosity. That selfless love for others continues and is evident in stories like this.
Source: Western Journal