The kid in the shopping cart taps his mother on the arm and says, "There's Santa Claus."

No, the mother tells him as they roll down the aisle in the Target store at Southridge Mall. That's just an old guy who looks like Santa.

It's 80 degrees outside in early June. If Santa really were here, for some strange reason, he'd be on the golf course.

As it is, he's probably up at the North Pole cleaning out the reindeer barn, going over the names of all the new children in the world.

But the kid won't give up. "Mommy," he says. "I know that's Santa."

No, it isn't. Yes, it is. Can we please move on.

That's when the old guy with the fluffy white beard takes out his business card, hands it to the kid and sure enough. The guy is Santa.

Kid: "See?"

Mother: "I'm sorry, Sweetheart. I'll never doubt you again."

The end.

Playing the role of Santa in this little one-act play is Ken Deever, who loves to tell the story and swears it's true.

Deever, 53, is the Warren County man who brings Christmas every year to the kids at Moulton Elementary School.

He chose Moulton because the families in the neighborhood are low-income. And when he was a kid, well before his roofing business grew to the sky, his family lived a few blocks away from the school.

If the Moulton kids behave and do their class work, Deever takes them to McDonald's for a Saturday breakfast. Then it's on to Wal-Mart, where the boys and girls get $30 gift certificates to buy Christmas presents for parents, siblings and anyone else but themselves.

Then they get back on the bus and return to the school, where Deever passes out sacks filled with presents and candy. He's been doing this for 10 years, loving it more every year.

"It makes everyone so happy," he says, "and it teaches the kids it's better to give than to receive. They're very good shoppers, too. They can make $30 go further than anyone I've ever seen."

Last year, two days before Santa's annual Moulton appearance, Deever's house burned to the ground. Destroyed with all of the family's personal belongings were 500 presents and 125 gift cards.

Rather than calling the whole thing off, Deever and his friends and their friends hustled to replace, wrap and deliver all the presents to the Moulton kids. They jammed three months' work into 48 hours. Then they collapsed.

I don't write much about Christmas this time of year for obvious reasons, but when Deever called with an update, it was too hard to resist.

The fire and the loss of all the family possessions and the way everyone jumped in to help - it changed his life.

We're sitting across from each other when Deever reaches over the table and taps one of the "Rooftop Foundation" brochures he brought.

"I'm living for this right now," he says.

Losing everything was a horror story. The roofing business allowed Deever to build a huge estate a few miles south of Des Moines.

The stress of starting over, finding a temporary home, rebuilding, replacing, jumping through insurance hoops, nearly did him in.

His multiple sclerosis kicked up again and knocked him flat. He had a bout with depression.

But he bounced back. While the family tends to the business, he concentrates on taking Christmas to a new level.

Now he wants to get schools in other low-income neighborhoods involved.

At the moment, he's busy putting together a "Christmas in July" golf outing at Terrace Hill, signing up foursomes and sponsors - (515) 202-9137.

In some ways, Deever is still like the rest of us. When he looks in the mirror, he sees too much gray hair.

In other ways, he's not.

"I can't wait for it all to turn white," he says.

The goal is to get the hair as white as the beard. A woman at the roofing company tells him he'd look 10 years younger if he'd lose the facial hair.

He tells her he doesn't want to look 10 years younger. He wants to look 10 years older.

"That fire took everything away from us," Deever says. "We lost every one of the kids' pictures. No memories left. But it sent us to another page of life. Our wants and needs are nothing anymore."

Baptism by fire, or something close.