Good News



Most of the news in the media today is depressing, but this week I read an article in the Kansas City Star that was heartening. It rold about a homeless man who stopped to help a driver who was stuck in a snow bank. The driver happened to be a Kansas City Chiefs football player on his way to the playoffs a week ago. The player, Jeff Allen, tried to locate the man called "Dave" on Twitter to give him tickets to the AFC Championship Game at Arrowhead coming up.

Allen finally located "Dave" on Twitter and so did thousands of other people. Someone set up a GoFundMe account and raised $10,000 in less than 24 hours. A reporter located him and found out that this homeless man has a habit of helping people with his old white truck in which he lives.

"Dave" admits his background is bleak. He was in a reform school in his teens, spent seven years in prison, and suffers from addictions. But he has started to put his life together. He has a fiancee and a son and has been clean for three months. He wants to get a job and raise a family.

The person who started the GoFundMe account, Justin Manford, a graduate student in Manhattan, Kan.,  knew nothing about Dave's past when he set it up, but he's not surprised. He hopes this will give Dave a "leg up to get on the path that he wants."

Dave is overwhelmed by the attention and the response of strangers. He knows he's lost a lot of years, but is determined to use this chance to turn his life around. He's trying to sort out his good fortune, but no matter what happens, he'll continue helping people in trouble because that's the kind of guy he is. And that's good news.

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