South Memphis teen Chauncy Jones Black was starving.
While he was thankful to have a roof over his head, he still needed food in his belly.
He could no longer just sit there and starve.
He grabbed his bus pass and headed down to the “rich people’s Kroger.”
When he got there he asked some shoppers if he could carry their groceries in exchange for a pack of glazed doughnuts to eat.
He happened to stop a young man named Matt White.
“This kid looked like he had been turned down 100 times. He looked ashamed, hungry and broken. In my heart, I screamed a loud ‘yes!’ but to him I just chuckled and said, ‘yeah dude, we’ll get you some donuts,'” Matt wrote in a Facebook post. “I asked him if he was by himself and he said that he had come all the way out here with the hopes of someone buying him something to eat because he and his mother had nothing at home.”
But Matt got Chauncy a lot more than a pack of doughnuts.
He took the 16-year-old on a full shopping spree.
During their shopping spree, Matt learned that Chauncy is a straight A student who was trying to get a job to help his mother pay the rent.
He told Matt that though he was poor now, he would someone be wealthy and own his own business so he could help other people in his neighborhood and buy them groceries too.
“I was in awe. I gave him a ride home so that he didn’t have to take the bus and when we got to his house I was truly humbled. He wasn’t kidding. He and his mom had nothing,” Matt wrote.
“They didn’t even have beds or furniture. They were sleeping on pads made out of sleeping bags, they had two lamps and nothing in their fridge. Nothing. His mother was so sweet but very fragile. I couldn’t tell what it was, but she had some sort of physical and/ or mental disability that made her shake and made walking difficult. I thought I was going to cry,” Matt wrote.
Chauncy looked so happy and hopeful while they packed his fridge will the food Matt had bought.
This is because he knew he wouldn’t be hungry for several days.
Matt hugged the boy and told him that God loved him and that he was going to grow up to be an incredible man.
Matt’s Facebook post ended up going up viral with more than 14,000 shares.
Many people asked how they could help Chauncy and his family.
Matt decided to create a GoFundMe page to raise some funds for Chauncy. That GoFundMe page ended up raising $342,106.
From there, things really started looking up for Chauncy.
“As of today, Barbara and Chauncy have a new life. God has provided for them a home, a car, a new school, he has restored Barbara’s health and continues to present them with endless opportunities for the future,” Matt wrote on the GoFundMe page.
“Every dollar donated to Chauncy’s Chance was put into a protected trust that will provide them a secure future for decades. In every sense of the word, God has provided. But there were so many more miraculous things that happened along the way. And in the process of creating all the miracles for Chauncy’s Chance, God pieced together the most beautiful tapestry of fellowship and community I have ever witnessed.”
Chauncy even got a lawnmower so he could start his own business.
These events inspired Matt to help other people in need.
He’s currently a mother and her four young children.
You can donate to that campaign here and read Matt’s original post below.
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I just met the most inspiring person ever. His name is Chauncy Jones. He's a 16 year old from Memphis. He had taken the…
Posted by Matt White onThursday, June 9, 2016
