A 35-year career at a General Motors truck plant made Gary Kendrick a millionaire, but no one knew it until he donated the money to two children’s charities after his 2021 death.
Kendrick, who worked in the body shop at GM’s Flint Assembly Plant in Michigan, had no close family or friends to include in his will. After he retired in 2006, he contacted an estate lawyer and directed her to split his assets between the Make-A-Wish Foundation and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.
When Kendrick died in February 2021 at age 67, the gifts turned out to be more generous than his lawyer, Dawn Weier, realized.
“I was able to start doing discovery on Mr. Kendrick’s assets,” Weier told a Flint TV station last week. “That’s when I discovered he had in his General Motors profit sharing plan alone more than $1.3 million.”
The charities, which help children with serious illnesses, each received a check from Kendrick’s estate for $563,275.
“A lot of bad things happening in this world right now, and that is just a great story,” said Ryan Buchalski, who worked with Kendrick in the plant’s body shop. “I am just so proud to have known Gary.”