as full as their hidden bank accounts.
“In a world that is in many ways sur-
vival of the fittest, they’re certainly a
special class of people,” says Garza.T
hese unassuming philanthro-
pists share some qualities. The
most obvious is that they often
have no children. That’s one reason
many of them were able to save so
much of their humble paychecks.
It also means they had no direct
natural heirs. “People who are single
are thinking about what good they
can do with their money and what
legacy they want to leave,” says Stacy
Palmer, editor of the Chronicle of
Philanthropy.
Often that legacy touches on help-
ing the children they never had. As a
kid in Milwaukee, Leonard Gigowski
took the 6:30 bus every morning to get
to St. Francis Minor Seminary, a Cath-
olic high school that later became
St. Thomas More High School. After
a stint in the Navy, Gigowski went on
to become a butcher and a grocer. He
never married—and he never forgot
St. Thomas More. Gigowski visited
regularly and sometimes would eat
lunch with the students in the cafete-
ria. One time, he stood up and started
singing the school cheer. His “kids,”
as Gigowski called them, grinned and
joined him. On his 90th birthday, in
2015, administrators arranged a sur-
prise assembly for him. The kids sang
“Happy Birthday,” and Gigowski led
them in prayer.$8.2 million to charity. Six million dol-
lars went to educational programs at
the Henry Street Settlement, a social
services organization in New York
City. An additional $2 million went
to scholarship funds, including at
Bloom’s alma mater, Hunter College.
“She had millions,” says Lockshin,
“and no one suspected it.”
Bloom’s bequest to the Settlement,
the largest in its 126-year history,
will help fund a program for dis-
advantaged students. “The gift has
been transformative not just because
of the good we’ll be able to do with
it,” says David Garza, the agency’s
executive director, “but because ofthe selflessness and the humility be-
hind it.”
Sylvia Bloom’s story is indeed ex-
traordinary, but it’s not as uncommon
as you might think. Working-class
benefactors—secretaries, teachers,
janitors, and more—make headlines
with awe-inspiring regularity. In 2015,
a retired grocer in Milwaukee left
$13 million to a local Catholic high
school. The year before, a former
JCPenney janitor from Vermont left
a nearly $5 million bequest to a local
hospital. Their stories are as rich and“IN A SURVIVAL-OF-
THE-FITTEST WORLD,
THEY ARE A SPECIAL
CLASS OF PEOPLE.”74 february 2019
Reader’s Digest