On March 19, eight boxes with return labels from the “My Pillow” company in Minnesota arrived at Athens Middle School. It turns out they were a personal gift from the company's founder, Mike Lindell. Athens Middle School seventh-grader Jakenadi Powers, her geography teacher Clay Styles and AMS seventh-grader Troy Young show off the travel-size pillows.

The front office staff at Athens Middle School didn’t know what to make of the eight oversized boxes that arrived at the school on March 19. Curious, Misty Miller, the school’s secretary, opened them one at a time and discovered 120 “My Pillow” travel pillows, enough for every single student in the school.

The pillows were a personal gift from Mike Lindell, the one-time crack addict who turned his dream of the perfect night’s sleep into a pillow-making empire.

When seventh grade geography teacher Clay Styles heard about the pillow delivery, he couldn’t believe it.

What started out as a conversation between Styles and his first semester geography students about the value of competition, became an ongoing life lesson centered around the trials and triumphs of Lindell, who started the My Pillow company from scratch in 2004 while still addicted to cocaine. After several stops and starts, including a divorce, massive debt, a lawsuit, and criticism from the Better Business Bureau, Lindell’s company is now worth $300 million.

“We were talking about being an entrepreneur and owning your own business and what you could do to make it fail or succeed when the My Pillow commercial popped into my head,” Styles said. “His story, his ability to be able to take criticism from all types of people saying his business wouldn’t work became a lesson to them.”

“Him having a passion for something and having the patience to stick with it really resonated with them,” he said. “If I could get one thing across to these students it is that in life not everything is going to happen the way you want it to.”

Seventh-grader Troy Young said he was inspired by that fact that Lindell was an addict and became a Christian.

“He started in his garage and made it into a huge business,” Young said. “He was in such a dark place in his life and turned it into a success, he showed me what drive and determination can do.”

On a whim, Styles emailed the My Pillow company in Chaska, Minnesota, over Christmas break. In the email, he shared with them how Lindell’s story had touched his students. To his surprise, the company wrote him back and suggested Styles send an email to Lindell himself.

He emailed Lindell the next day. A few weeks later, Lindell responded.

“He thanked me and told me to tell all my students hello and thank you for caring about my story,” Styles said. “He also asked me how many kids were at the school.”

Styles didn’t think anything of it until last week when the boxes arrived.

“I ran up to the office and there were all these pillow, 120 of them,” he said. “I had no idea he would do something so generous.”

Jakenadi Powers, another one of Style’s geography students, said she was amazed by Lindell’s kindness.

“This man who has this huge business took the time to do that for us,” she said. “It means a lot to us.”

Styles said he plans to pass out pillows to all of the teachers at the school. The rest of the pillows will be awarded to students who can earn a pillow by doing a good deed or competing for one.

Students will get a chance to snag a pillow this week by writing essays about why Lindell was so successful. The winners of the contest will each receive a pillow.

Styles plans on sending the winning essays to Lindell.

“It’s our way of showing our appreciation to a man who has shown himself to be the real deal,” Styles said.