Matt
White and Chauncy Jones may never have met, if it wasn't for Jones
cross-town trip to the "rich people's Kroger" in search of a helping
hand.
White, who lives in Memphis, Tenn., said in a Facebook post
that Jones approached him at the grocery store and asked if he could
carry his groceries out of the store in exchange for a box of doughnuts.
"This
kid looked like he had been turned down 100 times," White wrote in a
June 10 Facebook post. "He looked ashamed, hungry and broken."
White
said he asked the teen whether he was at the grocery store alone, and
learned Jones had taken a bus across town in "hopes of someone buying
him something to eat because he and his mother had nothing at home."
“He
had no phone, a bus pass, and he was depending on the graces of a
stranger to feed him within the hour before the bus left,” White said.
The
duo went through the grocery store grabbing frozen vegetables, pizzas,
peanut butter and tooth brushes for Jones to take home.
“All the
while we talked, and he told me how he makes straight A's in school and
is trying to get a job to help his mom pay rent,” White said.
White
drove Jones to his home and was shocked when he saw the fridge was
empty, and the teen and his mother had no furniture and were sleeping on
pallets on the floor.
“As we unpacked the food into their
kitchen, you could see the hope coming back into Chauncy's eyes,” he
said. “He knew he wasn't going to be hungry. He looked like a kid
again.”
After White's Facebook post was shared thousands of times, he decided to set up a GoFundMe page for Chauncy and his mother, which has raised almost $92,000 to date.
“I
didn't know this much love could exist in one place, be aimed in one
direction, but seen and felt and empowered by so many people,” White said on GoFundMe.
Follow @MaryBowerman on Twitter.
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