A Secret Santa surprise for a young father who has lost his parents, brother and other family members to COVID

A Secret Santa is back and this Christmas is bigger than ever!

The EastIdahoNews.com team is busy helping a local man gift more than $500,000 this holiday season. A lot more. Secret Santa is a real person who wants to remain anonymous and hopes to help as many individuals in our community as he can.

Jair finished an engineering program at BYU-Idaho a year ago. During the time it took him to finish his degree, his wife and children lived with relatives out of state and he saw them sporadically. When he graduated, it allowed him to be able to bring his family to Idaho where he could finally get a job and a home.

Jair’s family has been hit very hard by COVID-19 this year. In early October, his uncle and aunt both passed away from the virus. Jair then received word his father had COVID and he passed away. Four days later, his mother was admitted to the hospital where she died.

Jair flew to Guadalajara, Mexico to help with his parents’ affairs. While there, his brother became gravely ill and less than two weeks later, he died due to complications of COVID-19.

Jair has been incredibly strong but must return to Mexico to help settle the affairs of his parents and brother. He is overwhelmed and working very hard so he can afford to travel and help his sister-in-law. He has organized and helped establish fundraisers to care for the surviving family members.

Secret Santa was touched by Jair’s story and asked the East Idaho News elves to visit him at work with a special gift. Watch the video in the player above to see what happened!