Yareli Madrid looked around the parking lot to see if anyone else was filming.
These days, acts of kindness can seem inseparable from the cameras documenting them, with good deeds becoming content, measured in likes and views. But a teenager had just taken off his shoes and given them to an elderly man who was having trouble walking, and Madrid wanted to know whether anyone was watching.
She saw no one.
“He’s doing it from his heart,” she recalls thinking.
Madrid, 30, an instructional aide who is studying to become a teacher, pulled out her phone. She wanted the teenager’s parents to see what he had done, though she hesitated at the thought of recording someone else’s child without permission.
By then, Jordan Hope, 18, was already slipping the second shoe onto the man’s foot.
Hope was on his way to the bank to get money for a Halloween basket for his girlfriend when he spotted the elderly man outside a Walgreens in Maricopa, Arizona. The man was wearing what looked like slippers, Hope said, his feet barely covered by the worn footwear. The sight broke his heart.
Hope tells TODAY.com that he felt that God was telling him to turn around. So he did. He stopped his car, took off his Nike slides and gave them to the man.
At first, the man seemed confused, Hope said. Hope told him he thought the shoes would be more comfortable. The man accepted them and, according to Hope, continued to wear them.
Hope drove on to the bank, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the man. He returned to Walgreens and found him looking at candy. The man had picked out some M&M’s, and Hope offered to pay for them.
During their conversation, Hope asked whether the man had a wife. The man told him that his wife had died two weeks earlier.
“It really got to me,” Hope says.
The man, whom Hope estimated was about 80, told him he had no family nearby. He lived alone and, Hope said, was reluctant to ask for help.
Hope offered to drive him home, but the man had trouble getting into the car. After about 15 minutes of trying, Hope arranged a Lyft instead. He gave the driver $20 to stop at Culver’s for food, then followed the ride to the man’s home. Once there, he helped the man out of the car, unlocked the door and stayed to talk.
Before leaving, Hope exchanged phone numbers with the man, whom he later identified publicly only as Mr. Roy to protect his privacy.
Madrid posted the video on Facebook the next day, along with a message about what moved her.
“What makes it even more special is that he did it without anyone watching, without cameras, without expecting recognition or praise,” she wrote. “He simply saw someone in need and helped from the goodness of his heart.”
Madrid said she was glad she had shared the video. She initially worried that the teenager’s family might object to her posting it, but relatives identified him in the comments. The response reinforced what had struck her about the encounter: Hope had helped someone without expecting recognition.
For Hope, the decision came down to his Christian faith.
“God pushed me out of my comfort zone to help someone out,” he says. “He interrupted my plans for the day to carry on with it as well.”
The encounter didn’t end when the Lyft pulled away. Hope and Mr. Roy now call each other every day to check in. When Mr. Roy recently spent hours in the emergency room because of his leg, he called Hope to ask if he could pick him up. Hope went to get him and took him home.
Mr. Roy declined to be interviewed and wanted to keep his identity private, Hope said. Hope has also started a GoFundMe campaign to help cover Mr. Roy’s grocery and transportation costs.
What began with a pair of shoes has grown into a friendship.
“I just hope that God heals him in his loneliness right now,” Hope says, “and that I’m just a person to be there for him.”
This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY:
