Frugal Carpenter Quietly Saves $3 Million To Send Strangers To College.



When Dale Schroeder passed away in 2005, he had no family left to mourn him, but his legacy will live on in the 33 strangers whose lives he changed for the better. The unmarried carpenter lived a simple life, working at the same company for 67 years. Though he saved throughout those decades, he only left a few possessions behind: two pairs of jeans and a rusty Chevrolet truck. As for money, he had amassed nearly $3 million, although he never spent an extra cent on himself. He had been holding onto the money for a much greater purpose. Dale had grown up poor and never got the chance to go to college, so he made it his life’s mission to give others that opportunity. He left instructions for his entire small fortune to be used to pay for tuition for local Iowa students. Dale’s generosity ended up giving 33 people an education they wouldn’t otherwise have been able to afford. Kira Conrad was one of those people. She was close to giving up on her dream of becoming a therapist when she got the call that her entire $80,000 tuition would be paid in full. In 2019, she and some of the other recipients gathered, 14 years after Dale’s death, to celebrate his amazing gift. Dale may have lived small, but he made an incredible impact that’s sure to grow and spread as the recipients of his generosity make good on their promise to pay it forward.