Matel Dawson has worked and sweated as a forklift driver in
Dearborn, Michigan for nearly 60 years, often clocking 84 hours a week. He has spent scarcely anything on himself, preferring to invest heavily in the stock of his employer, Ford Motor Company.
He could have been one of those millionaires next door you read
so much about, living frugally while piling up money for a lavish
retirement. Instead Dawson has given most of it to strangers.
Since 1995, he has donated more than $1 million for college
scholarships. And at age 78, he just keeps working and giving:
"I wouldn't know what to do if I retired," he says. "It keeps
me going, knowing I'm helping somebody."
Three years ago, Dawson phoned the Shreveport branch of Louisiana
State University, a tiny campus with about 4,000 students in the
town where he grew up. He wanted to know how to make a donation.
Chancellor Vincent Marsala remembers taking the call and assuming
that because Dawson was an autoworker, the most he could give was
a couple of hundred dollars. Marsala says he "nearly flipped" when
Dawson wrote checks for $200,000 -- enough to fund 18 four-year
scholarships.
To date, Dawson has also given $431,500 to Wayne State University
in Detroit, $230,000 to the United Negro College Fund and a few
hundred thousand dollars more to various community colleges and
churches. All he asks of the schools is that they use his money
to give scholarships to the most deserving students, regardless
of race.
"If I was to do anything with my money other than help some of
these kids begging to go to school," he said, "I'd be throwing
it away."
What drives this blue-collar philanthropist? One spur is his
own thwarted desire for higher education. Growing up the fifth
of seven children in Shreveport, he had to drop out of school
after seventh grade to help support his family.
"I always wanted to better myself," says Dawson, "but I came
up in the Depression. I had to work."
Dawson says he's trying to live up to the example set by his
late mother Bessie, a laundress. He watched as she helped others
who were less fortunate, even when she could barely feed her
family. She made Dawson and his siblings promise always to
"give something back," no matter how little. It's a lesson he
took with him back in 1940 when he headed for Detroit.
Today he lives in a one-bedroom apartment in Highland Park, a
gritty Detroit suburb. He drives a red 1985 Ford Escort that
runs just fine, thank you -- though neighborhood thieves have
forced him to do without hubcaps. His only vacations are
occasional jaunts to Shreveport to meet recipients of the
scholarships named in honor of his parents.
Dawson has received an honorary degree from Wayne State,
plus a Trumpet award for philanthropy from Turner Broadcasting
System. He shrugs at such honors.
"I just want to be remembered," he says, "as an individual
who tried to do some good."