If you’re in the need for a little good news, we’ve got some right here. It’s out of Rockwall, Texas, where a man named Andy Mitchell spotted another man in a fast food uniform walking in the sweltering summer heat. He pulled over and offered the man a ride, and the two struck up a conversation.
Mitchell’s passenger’s name is Justin Korva, a 20-year-old who walks three miles to his job at Taco Casa every day. Korva said he’d been saving up for a car but until then, he’d have to walk. Mitchell posted a little something about the exchange on Facebook and that was that. Or so everyone thought.
Stranger stops to offer 20-year-old ride to work; days later, he returns with surprise that brings the man to tears https://t.co/OinTbnfk7p pic.twitter.com/eYeN03OEKi
— CBS News (@CBSNews) June 28, 2017
The Facebook post got shared around, to the point where a local pizza joint set up a box for donations to help get Korva his car. In two days, the box was stuffed with over five thousand dollars. That success story, in turn, inspired the general sales manager of a local Toyota dealership named Danny Rawls to reach out to his boss and talk him into knocking the price down on a Camry. Rawls reached out to the pizza place and as it turns out, they had enough money to cover the car, a year’s worth of insurance, two year’s worth of oil changes and a $500 gift card for gas.
All that remained was to take the car over to Taco Casa and give Korva the most shocking present of his lifetime. As you can see in CBS‘ video above, it was a very special moment.
What’s especially cool about all this is that it’s evidence of how one act of kindness can balloon into many more. One person offers a guy a lift on a hot day, which inspires another to start collecting donations, which inspires someone else to find a way to get Korva a car. That’s a great reminder to the rest of us to never discount where one, small, nice thing can get you.