By spreading some green, Depauville man encourages the spirit of Christmas

Dec. 19—WATERTOWN — The video shows a man approaching a woman checking out at Aldi on Arsenal Street. She has a full cart, and the man interrupts her as she prepares to pay.

"I'm trying to help people at Christmas. So, here's $100 toward your purchase," the stranger tells her.

"Oh my!" the woman exclaims. "Thank you so much!"

They hug and the man says, "Merry Christmas." People in line cheer. One gives the benefactor a high-five. "Thank you," he responds, and exits, leaving in his wake a hovering spirit of Christmas.

The $100 giveaway is repeated at Aldi later in the day. This time, an elderly gentleman is the $100 recipient. The giver goes into his spiel: "I'm trying to do something to spread the joy at Christmas time."

"Oh! Thank you very much!" the gentleman responds, accepting the offering. He would later turn around and give the $100 gift card to another person; a woman with children in tow whom he thought was more needy than him. She cried at that benefaction.

It's all part of Kirk S. Gilchrist's "Spread the Joy: 12 Days of Giving" campaign. He spent one day, Tuesday, Dec. 5, visiting 12 sites around the city as an associate recorded him giving away cash and gift cards. He hoped to motivate the recipients to do something similar in return if possible.

"I want to give back to the community, but also to kind of spur something," Gilchrist, a Depauville resident, said on Monday. "It's the whole idea that Christmas is about giving and this is about giving. I've had a very good year in real estate, I love the community I live in so, how can I give back? I just thought this was a good idea."

Gilchrist has sprinkled the Christmas spirit from a city bus stop to Salmon Run Mall. He's given away $20 gifts after dropping a "Spread the Joy" card with the cash on a floor; walked up to strangers at the mall and then giving them $50 in cash. He's placed $10 Starbuck gift cards on vehicle windshields in a parking lot.

"I wanted people to see, 'Hey, you don't have to give $100. You can give $5 or $10. It will equal something for people,'" he said.

In his "Spread the Joy!" calling card he gives to recipients, Gilchrist explains he's a "top producer real estate agent serving the Northern New York area." He's been a real estate agent for seven years, with the past three years at Bridgeview Real Estate, Clayton. But before he was selling homes, he was saving and serving souls.

In June of 2022, he retired as senior pastor of New Life Christian Church, 255 Gaffney Drive. His son, Joseph Gilchrist, is now the lead pastor at the church.

Gilchrist began to post his "12 Days of Giving" videos on Facebook on Thursday, releasing one a day until their conclusion on Christmas Day, Monday. He also visited the homes of a couple of single moms during his mission. "We gave one mom a gift certificate for a hotel with a pool so she could bring her kids there, and we gave her enough money to eat out that night," he said. The other mom was given tickets to a Syracuse University basketball game for her and her children. One of the moms he got to know from a home he sold and the other is an acquaintance of his from New Life, where Gilchrist is still a member.

Accompanying Gilchrist on his Dec. 5 "Spread the Joy" visits was Aubrey Cook, Media Director at New Life, who recorded, edited and is posting the videos online.

"I teared up a couple if times, just being able to have a front row seat to see these people blessed by his generosity," Cook said. "My favorite one happened at a bus stop with a mom and her child. You could tell it was the right person at the right time who needed his gift."

Cook is also the founder of Vivid Concepts Marketing and has worked with Gilchrist previously for his real estate projects. She said when he approached her with his "Spread the Joy" campaign, she couldn't wait to get started.

"I thought it was a great idea and so excited to be able to help him with it," she said. "We had so much fun. We went all over Watertown. It was fun not only being part of it, but seeing peoples' reaction. People were so excited and moved to tears, but it was also the smiles we saw and the joy we saw, which was his goal all along."

Gilchrist's "Spread the Joy" card he leaves with recipients contains his contact info. The elderly man in the Aldi line used that info to call Gilchrist and to update him on what he did with his $100 gift and how he made the woman with children very happy.

"She burst into tears," Cook said. "Kirk's main goal is to bless people but also to encourage them to take it and use it if they need to, but if they don't, give it to someone else and start a snowball effect of spreading joy around the area."

Gilchrist said he invested about $1,000 in his "Spread the Joy" campaign. He often improvised as to who he selected for his gifts, and gave an example:

"We were in the mall, took $20 bills with that 'Spread the Joy' card and dropped them on the floor, which was really interesting and funny because of how many people would walk on top of it, walk right by and not see it."

He added, "While we were doing that, I saw this lady in a wheelchair and I said, 'Let's do something random just for her.' So we gave her the card with the $50 dollar bill. Obviously, she was overjoyed. A guy then walked up to me and said, 'I want to shake your hand for doing that for her.'"

The "Spread the Joy: 12 Days of Giving" videos can be viewed on Instagram at the Kirkgilchrist_realestate page and on Facebook at the Kirk Gilchrist — Licensed Real Estate Salesperson page.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the visits posted on the sites:

Day 1, posted Thursday: Salmon Run Mall

Day 2, posted Friday: Starbucks, where a tab was opened.

Day 3, posted Saturday: Aldi.

Day 4, posted Sunday: Salmon Run Mall.

Day 5, posted Monday: Walmart.

Day 6, posted Tuesday: Back at Aldi, putting $10 gift cards to Starbucks, "Something smaller," in the vehicle windshields of customers.