Christmas cards hold surprise

The stickers sealing the envelopes said simply, “To a friend, from a friend.”Inside were Christmas cards being handed out on several North Division Spokane Transit Authority buses. The woman distributing them Thursday morning was a complete stranger to the passengers, whom she greeted with a “Merry Christmas” before quickly exiting.

If they saw her again, though, they might give her a big hug.

Inside each card was $50.

“She kind of kept her head down. I don’t remember ever seeing this lady before,” said bus driver Max Clemons, who witnessed the STA angel’s generosity.

“I had a young man in the back of the bus. He looked like he was going to start crying. He said in broken English, ‘She don’t know how much this will mean to me at Christmas.’ ” Clemons said.

The woman worked quickly, hopping on the bus and pulling the envelopes out of a cloth satchel. She enlisted a helper elf – a young boy – to help distribute the cards.

Buses were pulling away from stops before riders even knew what happened. One after another they discovered the surprise.

“There was a lot of excitement. People were making calls on their cell phones,” said driver Terry Dobson, who had two of his trips visited by the mystery woman.

“The people on those buses really needed the money,” Dobson said.

All told she gave away thousands of dollars. She did it so quickly that those who saw her could barely describe what she looked like – in her 50s or was it 60s? Her hat was red or was it black? Her outward appearance was unclear, clouded in a fog of warm feelings.

“It was just a neat thing,” said Dobson, who hours later was still giddy over the impromptu gift-giving. “It makes you tingle all over.”