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This week's secret millionaire is Texas internet mogul Jeff Usner. Though he's enjoyed a good deal of financial privilege, he's also experienced his share of tragedy: he and his wife lost a child to miscarriage, and shortly afterward he nearly lost his life to a stroke. Jeff is already a fairly reflective individual as he enters the show, and he frequently considers his own life priorities while touring poverty-stricken San Antonio.
Jeff's first charity is called Team Ability, a non-profit dedicated to helping facilitate learning for children with severe disabilities. Jeff had a special needs family member growing up, and he draws on that experience to empathize with an affected family.
The second charity of the evening is Habitat For Safe Seniors, an organization that provides food and services to seniors in need. Jeff initially helps install a ramp in an elderly couple's home, but the full scope of the organization's mission becomes apparent when he volunteers at a feeding event: Habitat For Safe Seniors provides food for families in need, and at Jeff's event the line of cars stretches on for blocks. In the end, several needy people must be turned away; Habitat's coordinator speaks frankly with Jeff about her struggle to fund the organization.
Jeff finds a third charity in the Advocates Social Services, a youth boxing organization that aims to keep young people off the streets and out of trouble. He helps the team build a boxing ring, and speaks to a number of young boxers about the non-profit's impact on their lives -- he even steps into the ring with them for a bit.
Jeff donates $40,000 to Team Ability while affirming his commitment to volunteer, gives $35,000 to the Advocates and $85,000 to the struggling Habitat For Safe Seniors. In the sense that Secret Millionaire lives and dies on its weekly subjects, this episode can be considered a success: Jeff's enthusiasm for charity and seemingly genuine empathy for those less privileged than him make him a likable and sympathetic benefactor.
As a show, however, Secret Millionaire is starting to lose steam based on its dogmatic adherence to formula. Though it wasn't as notable when the series ran monthly, these weekly installments of tiered donations for the disabled, the elderly and at-risk children every single time are starting to lose impact through their predictability.
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