Friend Pays It Forward to Arizona man who uses furniture stores to help teachers

By Paul Horton

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    SCOTTSDALE, Arizona (KTVK, KPHO) — We Paid It Forward at a furniture store in Scottsdale to David Shillinglaw, who does all he can to help teachers and students. Suzanne Hooper, who nominated him, said, “He takes time out of his day and takes old fabric samples and carpet samples from other stores and donates them to teachers at a 501(c)(3) foundation.”

Instead of filling dumpsters with carpet and fabric samples, Shillinglaw gathers items from all three Bassett stores and fills his truck up and donates them. The students use them for art projects and the carpet for sleeping pads.

Because of his hard work, Hooper wanted to Pay It Forward to him. “We’ve got something for you buddy,” said Hooper. “We have $500 for you to Pay It Forward.” “No way, thank you,” replied Shillinglaw. “We shared your story about recycled fabric and Paul loved your story and that’s why we wanted to reward David for all his service,” said Hooper.

Shillinglaw has been doing this for nine years and hopes to get other furniture stores to start donating. Putting smiles on local students’ faces makes it all worth it. “We now have all of our other Bassett Stores doing it, hoping to get the same thing going with our neighbors,” said Shillinglaw. If you would like to nominate someone for our Pay It forward award, just fill out a nomination form on our community page.

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