‘Is this what kids feel like with Santa?’ Marcus Lemonis’ gift shocks alma mater’s staff
TV star and entrepreneur Marcus Lemonis lacks the white beard and red coat, but after announcing Thursday he will give $18,000 checks to each employee at his alma mater, Christopher Columbus High School, many may start calling him Santa Claus.
“It’s hot as s*** out here. I know we’re not supposed to cuss — all right — I will try to be brief about this,” said Lemonis, 48, as soon as he took the stage in front of about 1,600 people during a 9 a.m. schoolwide meeting on the Columbus football field.
The school administration had told students, teachers and staff to gather for a special guest appearance but hadn’t revealed the details. The last time they all gathered there was two years ago when the football team won the state championship.
“When we think about the people that make this school run, the people that make it tick, the people that take care of the grounds and the classrooms, that teach us, that take care of us, those to me are the most important service providers on the planet,” Lemonis said. “It’s not a glamorous job; it’s not a high-paying job; it’s a job with a lot of stress.
“Today, I’ll be providing a $3.1 million tip to everybody who works here. You’ll be sharing it,” he said. “Whether you’re a school teacher, whether you are in the maintenance department — every single employee will receive a check for $18,000.”
Lemonis, who hosts CNBC’s “The Profit,” graduated from Columbus in 1991 and was inducted into the Columbus Hall of Fame in 2015. In August 2020, the school partly named a new facility, the Center for Science and the Arts, after him.
His donation comes as part of his new initiative, The Great American Tip Off, a nationwide call to action to tip servers across the country.
Lemonis will dole out about $3.1 million to cover the one-time payments to the 180 Columbus employees — about 145 teachers and about 35 support staffers. Cristina Cruz, the school’s marketing director, said she couldn’t disclose the average employee salary at Columbus.
As soon as Lemonis broke the news, the crowd exploded in cheers.
“What the h*** just happened?” said Jannette Rojas, who teaches English at Columbus, 3000 SW 87th Ave. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Is this what kids feel like with Santa? Is this what my kids feel on Christmas morning?”
Rojas, 44, has worked at Columbus for about seven years and has two boys, ages 8 and 11. “This the most wow thing that has ever happened,” she said.
Erin McGrath, a colleague of Rojas in the school’s English department, described what happened as a “great example” of giving back and following the mission of the school’s Marist Brothers, an international organization of religious men dedicated to education. She has worked at the school for about 13 years.
“If you could’ve taken a picture of my face, it would’ve been a meme,” said McGrath, 36. “My heart is happy. It’s so full. I’m speechless.”
Both said they would follow Lemonis’ advice and use the money to pay off debt and invest. “Don’t go shopping!” Lemonis had told them a few minutes earlier.
Yovani Alvarez, the head of maintenance at the school and an employee of about 14 years, said he wants to invest it for his future.
“I’m very grateful,” said Alvarez, 43. “Very excited.”
School will also build two new centers, cancel class Friday
Lemonis also announced Thursday he will contribute an additional $7 million to build a college guidance center and a success center for students of disadvantaged backgrounds. Cruz said 35 percent of students at Columbus receive financial aid.
He requested the guidance center be named after two former teachers of his: Pat Call and Irene Culmo, and the success center after the Desmond family, his former neighbors. They all helped him get to where he is now and he wanted to recognize that.
“Two of the families were school teachers of mine when I went here, and the other family, the Desmond family, is the reason that I came to Columbus. They drove me to school every day. They shepherded me and gave me all of the instructions I needed,” he said.
Call, who taught biology and math at Columbus for nearly 45 years before retiring last spring, said “it was a total surprise” and she was “floored” when Lemonis said he wanted to honor her.
Lemonis’ most recent donation of more than $10 million is the largest the private, Catholic, all-male school has ever received since its founding in 1958. Cruz said she couldn’t disclose how much Lemonis has donated on other occasions, but that “he has been a great supporter of the school for many years.”
Lemonis was born in 1973 in Beirut, Lebanon. His birth mother dropped him off at an orphanage as a four-day-old baby. His parents, Sophia, a Lebanese, and Leo, a Greek, adopted Lemonis and moved him as a nine-month-old baby to Miami, where they raised him.
At about 25, after graduating from Marquette University in Wisconsin, Lemonis founded Camping World, which grew from a single store in Bowling Green, Kentucky, to the nation’s largest retailer of RVs, headquartered in Lincolnshire, Illinois.
Lemonis still leads the $5 billion-a-year company, which has more than 160 locations across the country, as its CEO and board chairman.
In “The Profit,” Lemonis finds struggling businesses and offers them cash in exchange for a piece of the profit, then tries to save the venture. In 2022, he will star in another show — The Renovator for HGTV — in which he will help people transform their homes.
Before he wrapped up Thursday, Lemonis said he had a third announcement that he hadn’t cleared with the administrators, pointing to the school’s president Thomas Kruczek: “There is no school tomorrow!” he said. Kruczek looked at him in surprise and raised his arms.
“Marcus! Marcus! Marcus!” the students chanted.
Asked later if he meant it, Lemonis said: “Oh, they’re definitely having school off tomorrow — I’m going to lock the fence, the door.”
Cruz confirmed afterward that the school canceled classes for Friday.
This story was originally published December 9, 2021 at 1:31 PM.
