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Beloved Shoeshiner Dies, Raises $200,000 For Sick Children

Bill Gnade

Albert Lexie, 76, of Monessen, PA, a shoeshiner who died October 16, may have only earned about $10,000 a year over his 30-year career, but his tip jar runneth over: He donated $200,000 in tips to the UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.

According to a UPMC press release, Lexie came to the hospital twice weekly for nearly 30 years to shine shoes. The tips he made on those days, usually Tuesdays and Thursdays, were given to aid the ill children for whom he cared so deeply.

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A “Most Successful Person”: Little Free Library Founder Dies At 62

Bill Gnade

Shortly before he died, Todd Bol, founder of the Little Free Library movement that spread across the globe, told the Star Tribune  he was the "most successful person I know, because I stimulate 54 million books to be read and neighbors to talk to each other."

Bol, 62, who died of pancreatic cancer on October 18 in Wisconsin, built the very first Little Free Library – a doll house-size case to hold books – in 2009 in honor of his mother, a former teacher who had recently died. Since then the little houses on poles holding books to be shared via an honor system have shown up in neighborhoods around the country and even around the world.

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