A small act of kindness can change a person's life. However, more often than not, these small acts of kindness never get recognised and the people who do them never truly know how much they affect the lives of others. Nonetheless, with the rise of the internet, no good deed in the 21st century can stay secret for too long and for one teen living in Texas, this meant that she got a bigger reward than she could ever begin to imagine.
Evoni Williams is an 18-year-old who has been working at La Marque, Texas Waffle House, to save money for college since July 2017. The high school graduate was working her regular shift when she came across partially disabled 78-year-old man, Adrien Charpentier, who was struggling to eat his breakfast.
When the old man, who was on oxygen and fighting to breathe, told Evoni that his hands weren't working, she knew exactly what to do and without a second thought began cutting up the ham on his plate to make his meal easier for him to chew.
The beautiful moment would have been lost in time if it weren't for one observant diner. Laura Wolf, who was in the Waffle House at the same time, took a picture of the adorable moment and uploaded it to her Facebook; response to the post was spectacular with it gaining 121,000 likes, 62,000 shares and thousands of comments from people all around the world praising Evoni's actions and her caring nature.
However, the public wasn't satisfied with simply commending the wannabe college student. Soon after the image was uploaded, Texas Southern University came forward to offer Evoni a $16,000 college scholarship. In addition, they reportedly provided a counsellor to help Evoni, who plans to study business management, out.
Amazingly, this wasn't even the end of it, with her actions also prompting the mayor of La Marque to proclaim March 8 2018 a day in her honour.
The mayor, who described the teenager as "a blessing to all those she serves in her job" announced in front of cameras: "Because of her willingness to serve others and of her giving heart to help those who come in contact with her, therefore... we hereby proclaim March 8 2018 as Evoni Nini Williams Day."
The Texas high school graduate looked overwhelmed and wiped away tears as the mayor of La Marque announced the creation of Evoni 'Nini' Williams Day, telling news outlets that helping elderly diner Adrien was "something I would do any other day." She added that the gentleman had required help because his hands were "not functioning too well."
Charpentier also spoke to journalists presents, telling them: "My hands are not up to par. If I want to cut my meat, I look like I’m stabbing it."
The heartwarming story goes to show that, although we may think that small gestures of kindness don't matter, they really matter more than anything else. We wish Evoni the best of luck at college.
