
The Puget Sound area has finally (mostly) emerged from Snowpocalypse 2019 -- but my mom and her sister (who are in their mid-eighties) have been without power for several days. I found this out only a couple of days ago. Fortunately they have a gas fireplace and heating system, so they have had warmth and hot water, but their cars were both snowed in to almost 20". Even if they had snow shovels, they were not going to be able to dig out. Their landline didn't work because it's an electric phone, and they couldn't get into the cars to charge their cell phones. So of course they have been leaving their cell phones turned off to save the batteries.
They live on the other side of Lake Washington from me, and I didn't think I could get over there to help out, so I put out a call on Facebook, asking if anyone on my friends list -- or any strong friends of friends -- would like to earn some money digging the cars out. A former work colleague, someone I'm not very close to, and have only seen once in the past several years, volunteered to drive 10-15 miles to help, and to pick up a snow shovel on the way. I offered him $75 plus whatever he paid for the snow shovel. He declined payment.
When he got there he found out that their neighbors had already dug them out! But their street was still so slushy they couldn't have driven anywhere. So he went to KFC to get them some dinner. They gave him a $50 to pay for it and get them some coffee. KFC didn't have coffee, so he went to Starbucks for coffee and got some pastries as well so they would have something for breakfast. He reported this to me via FB.
As I started typing this, my mom called to let me know their power was back on. It turned out that my friend told them their change was in the Starbucks bag. The $50 was in the bag. He had paid for all of it himself.
I barely know this person, but he invested major time, effort, and money to make sure my mom and aunt were okay. He told me that he couldn't get to his mom during the weather, but that her neighbors were taking care of her, so he was happy to help someone else's mom.
I was almost in tears of gratitude when he first volunteered to go over and help, and now that I know he paid for food for them I'm even more overwhelmed.