When Carlos Valdez and his family crave pizza, they head to the same place; Papa John’s in their neighborhood in Utah. It wasn’t the pizza that was always good; it was the 89-year-old employee who always greeted customers with “Hello, are you looking for some pizza?”
When Newey retired, his pension wasn’t enough to cover his monthly bills, so he went back to work delivering pizzas. Even though he was in his golden years, Dewey worked about 30 hours a week at Papa John’s.
Delivery driver Derlin Newey’s optimism inspired the Valdez family to share clips of his greetings through their TikTok channel @vendingheads with their 53,000 fans. Valdez decided it was only fitting to return the favor, and the community appreciated the videos showing Newey’s goodwill and kindness.
“This is insane.” Valdez told CNN that everyone loves him.
As a result, the Valdez family began asking for him by name whenever they needed pizza delivered. Newey’s TikTok followers also loved him, but questions began to pour in about why such an elderly man was still delivering pizzas.
“An individual at that age shouldn’t be working so much,” Valdez said.
The Valdez family reached out to its followers in September 2020 in order to surprise Newey in a sweet way. They asked users to donate what they could for Newey, hoping they could surprise him with a combined “tip” of a few hundred dollars, but soon they were in for a surprise themselves.
Check out the full video at the end of this article 🙂
The Valdez family collected much more for Newey than they ever imagined possible after reaching out to their followers for donations.
“We all came together as a community and raised over $12,000 for this amazing person,” Valdez told KSL 5 TV.
Having received the check signed by the “TikTok Family,” Valdez, his wife and their daughter knocked on Newey’s door with their own delivery.
A video of the surprise was shared on Twitter with the caption:
The 89-year-old Derlin Newey started delivering pizzas to make ends meet. He never imagined that one of his customers would change everything for him.”
He had no idea what to expect, nor was he familiar with TikTok as an app. “You communicate through the telephone?” he asked.
After the check was presented to Newey, the Valdez family broke down in tears.
Through tears, Newey struggled to say, “I don’t know what to say.”
The Valdez family and Newey were both moved by the generosity of the community, with Newey even saying, “There’s hope!”
The entire experience exceeded Valdez’s expectations.
As he says in the clip, “This couldn’t have gone any better. I’m glad we could help him. … We just need to treat people with kindness and respect like he does.
source : apost
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