GoFundMe Christmas surprise helps man visit family for the first time in years

For 63-year-old crossing guard Walter Spano, the holidays were going to be yet another missed opportunity to visit family.

But a family from Gilbert had higher hopes for Spano.

Mark and Lisa Schneider's daughter attends Payne Junior High School, where Spano works as a detention supervisor and crossing guard. On Monday, they met Spano at the crosswalk where he usually works and handed him a personalized holiday card and check for $2,200.

"We just wanted to give something to help you make your Christmas a little better," Mark Schneider told a teary-eyed Spano before he embraced each of them with a hug.

"I don't know if I have any words to describe my feelings right now," Spano said. "This was not what I saw coming for any reason. But it is a blessing. And I'm so grateful. Just amazing."

Spano said that he has two sons and two granddaughters who live in the Los Angeles area but hasn't been able to visit them for at least five years. Spano said his travel has been limited due to COVID-19, a troublesome economy, and personal reasons.

"(Visiting family) is always on my mind. It's just based on the financial possibility that I can go and visit with them," Spano said. "It's not that I'm not saving. It's just that it happens to not be enough and yeah things come up in a year's time. All of a sudden, it drains your savings or whatever, you know, other emergency personal issues."

Mark Schneider said that he and his wife first met Spano about a year and a half ago when either one of them would walk their now eighth-grade daughter Ava to school. The couple said that any time either of them walked by, they would make an effort to talk to him and get to know him better.

He mentioned that Spano was a private person at first but later began to open up. The exchange of pleasantries turned into Spano and the couple talking about their hobbies or what they did over the weekend.

Lisa Schneider noted that Spano was a huge music fan and even started a small rock band with some of his friends called "Voodoo Swing." She also said he is a big-time animal lover and has a part-time gig house-sitting and taking care of other people's pets. "He usually has a story or two to talk about," she laughed.

Above everything else, however, the couple said they have learned that Spano loves to help children. Spano works for the school as its detention supervisor, but also enjoys hanging out with the kids informally.

"When he doesn't have (detention) he just comes and hangs out with certain classes and they just talk about how all the teachers love him," Mark Schneider said. "And he hangs out with the kids like in the band group and with his speech class and they just all seem to really adore him."

Before the couple met Walter, Lisa Schneider mentioned that they were concerned about their daughter crossing the "very busy" intersection between San Tan Boulevard and Higley Road to get to school. After getting to know him, however, she said that her biggest concern was alleviated.

Dave Peterson, a neighbor of Mark and Lisa's, said that he has three children who all previously attended Payne Junior High School and know Spano. Citing the intersection, Peterson said that Spano prevented his oldest son Ethan from being hit by a car several years back and would have been in trouble "several different times" if it weren't for Spano.

"So (Ethan) was walking across the crosswalk one day and his bag exploded ... He's trying to get all this stuff and get out the intersection," Peterson said.

Peterson said that Spano, who is usually watching Higley Road, ran over to San Tan Boulevard and held up traffic coming from all four directions to give Ethan time to get everything back into his backpack and then off of the road.

According to the couple, it wasn't until later on that Spano revealed to them that he hadn't been able to see his family in years due to his financial hardships, which led to the Schneiders' decision to help out.

"And so together, the two of us wrote that GoFundMe, and then I started posting and doing reaching out or doing hashtags," Lisa Schneider said.

The Schneiders walked up to Spano around 8:40 a.m. and surprised him with more than $2,000 that they had raised for him since November 29. Mark Schneider said that they will keep the GoFundMe open until the donations stop and will bring Spano the remaining money that they raised.

Spano, who has worked at the school for about 10 years, said he isn't sure how soon he will be able to take off from work but plans to make arrangements to see his children and grandchildren as soon as possible.

"I'll be making my plans (to visit family) this morning. You bet," Spano said. "I'm ecstatic, this is one of my best days ever."

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: GoFundMe Christmas surprise helps man visit family for 1st time in years