Iowa Resident Spends $82,000 On Gift Cards To Hand Out To Everyone in Town
Earlham, Iowa is located about 30-miles west of Des Moines. The small town of about 1,500 people is making national news after one of its residents dropped a ton of cash on gift cards to help small businesses that are suffering during the coronavirus outbreak.
According to USA Today, "An anonymous donor surprised the town of about 1,400 that sits 30 minutes from downtown Des Moines by purchasing gift cards to three local businesses and arranging for the city to send them to every household."
How cool is that?!? This person spent around $82,000 to make sure each house in Earlham received $150 in gift cards. Earlham's Mayor, Jeff Lillie, broke down when telling the story to the Des Moines Register, "There are bad things that have been happening. As the mayor of a small town, making the decision to close our community centers and city hall and our library and all of the other bad decisions that we’ve been forced to make — and then here's this really great thing. It just tore down my walls."