800 students sing happy birthday to 80-year-old janitor

“They’re like my children,” Mabry said. “I’m like the old lady in the shoe.”

GEORGIA (Web Desk) – An 80-year-old janitor, Haze Mabry, went to Pike County Elementary school in Georgia to mop the hallways and bathrooms, saw 800 students lining in the hallway with handmade birthday cards and banners singing a full-throated happy birthday to him.

Students hugged him and chanted his name “Mr. Haze! Mr. Haze!” as walked the long corridor on his 80th birthday.

According to msn, his cards and gifts were filled with several buckets and students walked behind him helping him to collect his gifts.

“They’re like my children,” Mabry said in an interview with The Washington Post. “I’m like the old lady in the shoe.”

He has been so helpful to everyone and almost everyone is familiar with him even though he does not remember the name of everyone but he recognizes almost all of the school.

“I know the little faces, but I don’t know every name,” Mabry said.

Then he put a fine point on it: “Some of them make you know them.”

Like Faith, who often forgets her backpack in the cafeteria, and Lucy, who just wants a hug.

“Faith comes up to hug me and says, ‘Lucy, you can’t hug Mr. Haze, he’s my friend,’ ” Mabry said, adding that Lucy got a hug, too.

Mabry said he hadn’t planned to do much for his milestone birthday, so he was happy the students made a fuss.

“I done had so many,” he said. “I’m just glad to be here.”

“He’s the most loved person in this whole building,” said Lori Gilreath, a reading teacher, who organized the surprise celebration. “He won’t brag on himself, but it doesn’t matter what he’s doing or where he is, he will always stop what he’s doing to take care of a child if that child is having a bad day.”

Mabry’s birthday started with his wife of 56 years, Bill Mabry, singing happy birthday to him. And he tried a dance called flossing, a hip-and-arm swing popular with young people.

“My wife was singing happy birthday, and I was dancing, if you can call it dancing. I’m not a good dancer,” he said. “You know this little thing called the floss? I was trying to floss. No, I cannot floss.”

Mabry switched professions to take the custodial job when he was 67 after never working as a janitor before. The textiles factory where he worked for 35 years closed, and he needed a job to help support his family — his wife and four children.

As an Army veteran, he knew how to clean. While he was in the service, he always had the tidiest area and shiniest shoes.

He calls on those skills when he has to clean up messes others don’t want to touch.

“Mr. Haze, he works circles around all of us,” Gilreath said. “It s hard to keep up with him.”

Over the weekend, he said, he was still working through the piles of homemade cards at his house. He wanted to be sure to read each one.

One card from a student stood out to him. It read: “Mr. Haze, you are my sunshine.”

“I feel the same way about them,” he said.