Factory Worker Gets a Million Thanks for Gifts

Matel “Mat” Dawson has worked for Ford Motor Co. for 59 years and could have retired long ago. But he’s still at it at 78, driving a forklift, soaking up as much overtime as possible and pulling down around $100,000 a year.

Just so he can give most of it away.

With a $200,000 donation to Wayne State University last month, Dawson has donated more than $1 million to schools and charities since 1994.

“I get joy, happiness out of this,” he said at a news conference, nattily dressed in a pinstriped suit with a pink boutonniere. “I can go home and sleep good.”

Dawson got as far as the seventh grade in Shreveport, La., before coming to Detroit in 1940. He didn’t become a philanthropist by winning a lawsuit, hitting the lottery or collecting an inheritance.

All he’s done, he said, is work, work overtime, save and invest.

“No matter how much you make or how little you make, you’ve got to save a little of that,” he said. “I was raised like that, to help others. I have more than enough myself.”

For Dawson, who is divorced and has one daughter, “more than enough” doesn’t include vacations--he said making money is more enjoyable. He drives a 1985 Ford Escort and has a one-bedroom apartment in down-on-its-heels Highland Park, where Henry Ford built his Model T factory.

“A big house, a big car, that doesn’t excite me,” Dawson said.

Dawson earns about $100,000 a year through his base salary of $23.47 an hour, plus overtime from working 12-hour days. He runs a forklift and is classified as a “rigger”--a skilled tradesman available for a variety of jobs at the Rouge assembly complex in Dearborn.

In 1994, years after he could have retired, Dawson began giving his money away. The first recipient was the United Negro College Fund, which got $50,000 then and has received $180,000 more since.

He has given $200,000 to Louisiana State University at Shreveport; $112,000 to churches in Detroit and Louisiana; $20,000 to the NAACP; and $10,000 to community colleges.

The biggest beneficiary by far has been Wayne State, which with the latest gift has received $431,500. Last month’s gift, like a $200,000 Dawson donation in 1996, will go toward scholarships.

Dawson “stands as an example to all others who thought they didn’t have enough to give,” Wayne State President Irvin Reid said.

Dawson said he will remain at Ford and continue his philanthropy as long as he stays healthy. Next year he plans to set up a $100,000 scholarship fund in Shreveport to honor his grandparents.

“I won’t say I want to give it all away,” Dawson said. “But I’ll give the bulk of it away.”