The week's good news: July 25, 2019

It wasn't all bad!

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1. Iowa carpenter — and secret millionaire — surprises strangers by sending them to college

Unbeknownst to even his closest friends, Dale Schroeder scrimped and saved for so long that by the time he was 86 years old, he had accumulated a fortune worth $3 million. The Iowa carpenter was a hard-working "blue collar, lunch pail kind of guy," friend Steve Nielsen told KCCI. Before he died in 2005, Schroeder told Nielsen about his money, and how to spend it: He grew up poor and never had the chance to go to college, so he wanted to help young people further their education. Since then, Schroeder's fortune has paid for 33 small-town Iowa kids to go to college. They call themselves "Dale's Kids," and have gone on to become teachers, doctors, and therapists. The only stipulation is that they one day help others in a similar fashion. "You can't pay it back, because Dale is gone, but you can remember him and you can emulate him," Nielsen said.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.