How This Pizza Delivery Person Transformed One Elderly Man's Life Will Bring You To Tears
Every day each of us individuals is given opportunities to rise above the challenges life throws our way. How often do we pass by a person in need without even giving them the grace of eye contact? Too often. Media is filled with real-life stories of sadness, tragedy, and cruelty but not everyone lets life bog them down and keep them there. Ordinary, everyday people just like you and I rise above the mediocrity to do something great and their stories are truly inspiring.
Such was the case for Angela Nguyen and Sarah Hughes, two people who had seen their fair share of troubles just trying to get by in the world by working as pizza delivery drivers for Domino's. These two will tell you that sometimes a customer just sticks out, imprinted in your mind, just like Lee Haase, an elderly man who ordered pizza like clockwork on Saturday mornings. Until one day, a peek inside his trailer changed everything.
Living on the fringes of Anoka County, Minnesota, Lee Haase left an impression.
"He likes to order every Saturday,” she told USA Today in December 2015. “About 10:15 a.m. you are going to get an order from Lee.”
Like Angela, Haase was no stranger to devastating loss. Lee's turn for the worst began in 2015 when his house was badly damaged following a storm, making it uninhabitable. Shortly after, he lost his son in a horrible snowmobile accident. So Lee moved into a trailer just outside his home. However, the trailer wasn't that much better than his destroyed home because it had no electricity, plumbing or heat! With winter just around the corner, Haase was in a particularly vulnerable position.
It was then that Sarah noticed his circumstances and knew it wasn't right. She told her mother, Angela. Angela was anything but happy to hear about Lee's living conditions.
"I thought, ‘We got to do something,’” Angela told USA Today. “We got to do something. We can’t let a human being live like this.”
The first step Angela made was to purchase a heater for Lee's trailer. Cold comes on fast and serious change could take some time, and she had absolutely no intention of stopping there.
“[The pizzas are] what [Lee] would live on, on the weekends because he was elderly and couldn’t get Meals on Wheels,” Angela told The Atlantic. “I would look forward to delivering to him and just being a little ray of sunshine to him every Saturday morning, saying, ‘How are you doing, Lee?’ Sometimes, I would stop at the store and grab him a hot cup of coffee and a doughnut before I’d go there with his pizza.”
The next logical step was to get the whole community involved. Angela set up a gofundme account on Lee's behalf and financial contributions flowed in, not just from the community but the entire world!
"We got donations from as far as Australia,” Angela told USA Today.
In just two short months, Angela helped raise over $32,000 for Lee Haase. Amazed, Angela was inspired to go the extra mile for Lee.
Angela turned that $32,000+ into a brand-new home for her devoted, elderly customer. The community donated all of his furniture and necessities.
In the Humankind YouTube documentary, titled “Pizza delivery driver delivers new home to homeless man," the moment Lee saw how the community and world blessed him was caught entirely on camera.
Lee found himself utterly speechless, touched beyond words, as he took in all that was done for him. Side by side with Angela, Lee walks into his new home and is greeted by an entire team of volunteers! As Lee sits down he begins to really absorb it all and Sarah approaches him.
With tears in her eyes, Sarah gives him a warm hug. “You remember when this started, and I promised you we were going to help you?”
In the Humankind video we see Lee's new home is well decorated with festive, Christmas decor and as the video ends, Lee gathers around with his new friends and they all sing Christmas carols.
But before it is completely over, Angela offers one final tidbit of loving wisdom for all who are willing to listen:
“Every single one of us enjoyed doing this,” the thoughtful woman tells the camera crew. “This ain’t all for Lee. We all benefited.”
With the success of helping Lee under her belt, Angela let that motivate her to continue to help other customers on her Domino's delivery route.
“Another customer’s daughter just had surgery for Crohn’s disease and was very, very ill and the mother was out of work,” she told The Atlantic. “I started a GoFundMe for her, and we are getting enough donations that her mother doesn’t have to worry about going back to work right now. She can just stay home and take care of her daughter.”
