Teacher’s video about students’ holiday wishes leads to outpouring of generosity

A high school teacher‘s video showing her emotional reaction to students’ Christmas wishes went viral and unlocked the holiday spirit for countless strangers.

Cheri Guy, an English teacher at Desert Pines High School in Las Vegas, Nevada, posted a video to TikTok about her school’s annual “Wishmas” campaign. Students have the opportunity to write down one Christmas wish and the reason why it’s important to them. Then, the teachers and a few local community members try to work through the list to get as many items as possible.

As the video at @attagirlguy opens, Guy clearly sounds choked up at the long list of simple wishes made by the teenagers.

“I’m going to start at the top,” Guy said through tears. “Somebody said they want … for all the wishes to be granted. They didn’t ask for anything.”

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As she went through the list, she shared other basic items on the students’ list. According to her TikTok, one student wrote, “I would like some black slippers to keep my feet from the cold.”

Another said they wanted “a bag of Takis,” she read. “And their reason is, ‘It will help me not be hungry.'”

Guy continued to show emotion as she read several of the other wishes, including: “I want my sister to be happy on her birthday. It’s Dec. 5,” and “Just one Littlest Pet Shop Airplane Set,” because “I grew up with Littlest Pet Shops all my life.”

It’s Guy’s first year teaching at the school as part of the Jaguar Academy, a program for at-risk students.

“These kids face tremendous challenges outside of the classroom,” Guy told The Washington Post. “We have kids sometimes that don’t have shoes.”

It didn’t take long for comments to flood in, asking Guy how to help grant these students’ wishes. She shared an Amazon Wish List with her followers, who did their best imitation of Santa. Packages started to arrive at the local post office, and local mail officials asked Guy to come every day to make sure the deliveries didn’t pile up. As of Dec. 11, the entire wish list was purchased.

More than 350 wishes have already been granted, Guy told KSNV News. With 950 students signed up for a wish that has to be granted by Dec. 15, she said the teachers and community are doing all they can to make all of these wishes come true through gifts and monetary donations.

She posted a status update two weeks ago, saying that almost 200 gifts had been wrapped.

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And this week, she posted another Tiktok update saying that the organization of the Wishmas gifts had become all-consuming — but also pointing out, “This is the power of kindness.”

“One of the most incredible things about Wishmas is these kids are realizing they are loved—not just by the staff at the school, but by strangers around the country (who) care about them and believe in them,” she told “Today.”