One high school principal from North Charleston works an extra job at Walmart but isn’t doing it for extra income. North Charleston High School Principal Henry Darby has two extra jobs. He works for the town council — a position he has held since 2004 — and he works three nights a week at Walmart.
Darby is so motivated; it’s unclear how he has time for himself, his Walmart shifts run from 10 pm to 7 am, and he heads straight to work before the morning bell. Surprisingly, the reason Darby is working so much isn’t for himself. Instead, it’s for the low-income students at his school and their families. “I decided to get another job because the kids need help,” Darby told Post and Courier.
According to the South Carolina Department of Education, 90 percent of North Charleston High students live in poverty. Darby is used to working hard. Since he was a teenager, he has had the self-discipline to work three or four jobs, including at the airport and a glass factory. “Because of my work ethic, this is nothing new to me. This is just a part of my lifestyle. “—-HENRY DARBY
When he first got the Walmart job, he worked five days per week but found that was a little much — humans do need to sleep sometimes, after all. So, he continued three days a week and didn’t care if students judged him for working at the corporate retailer. He thinks it’s a good life lesson. “If some of them could see that a principal could work at Walmart, why can’t they?” he said.
With the money he’s raised — $2,500 as of the story’s initial publication in January — some of the money has gone to help pay college tuition, while more has gone to buy things for the students. “His heart is so big,” said Elizabeth Bowens, the school’s parent advocate administrator. “This is his community. He’s grown up here; he still lives here. These kids are like his kids.”
Darby hopes his work ethic will set an example for his students and help inspire them to rise out of poverty. “I wish that those of us who are born of poverty and had to struggle and made it to at least the lower middle class will look back to help others. ” ————-HENRY DARBY
Educating the next generation is already an honorable profession, but this principle has gone above and beyond. He has shown little regard for his time instead of working himself to the bone to help others. Though everyone doesn’t need to work that much, he is admirable, and his efforts remind us that we can (and should) do more to help others.