Helping other people is something that should be a goal for all of us, and for one selfless employee at a petrol station, a nice gesture turned into a crowdfunding effort that transformed the course of his life. After he paid for a stranger’s gas, people in South Africa began sending him money, and you won’t believe how much they contributed to him.
When you hear a story like this, you can’t help but feel compelled to help those in need.
Nkosikho Mbele was surprised when a simple act of kindness result in a financial reward of almost one hundred thousand dollars for him.
It was a normal day for the Shell gas station worker in Cape Town, South Africa, when a woman named Monet van Deventer pulled up to the pump.
The next thing you know, he was washing her windows and getting ready to put gas in her tank, but there was one thing. Due to the fact that Monet had lost her money, she was unable to pay for the gas required to refill her tank.
“I thanked him for cleaning my windows but informed him that I would not be able to put gas in the tank today. He was staring at my fuel needle, which was already in the red, and he seemed upset and concerned.”
After that, Nkosikho took out his own debit card and used it to pay for some gas for Monet.
Because Nkosikho is a kind person, he wouldn’t let Monet run out of gas on the busy highway she was on. He gave her 100 rand worth of gas and told her to pay him back the next time she was near a Shell.
Monet turned up again with the one hundred rands and the box of chocolates, but that was only the beginning…
After Monet posted the story to Facebook, where she is an account manager for a software company, people started sending her contributions as the story spread like a wildfire across the internet.
At that point, she sought advice from Nkosikho, and the two of them collaborated to launch a crowdsourcing initiative in which anybody could contribute money. Both of them were completely unable of anticipating what the situation would grow into.
People from all around were moved by Nkosikho’s generosity, and even Shell heard about what he had done and made the decision to nominate him for the Regional Service Excellence Award. It didn’t take long before hundreds of contributions started coming in.
In addition to this, Shell made the decision to give $35,000 to a charity of his choice.
At the end of the fundraising campaign, the total amount raised was $94,000, which is equivalent to an eight-worth year’s of pay for an employee at minimum wage.
Nkosikho’s sudden wealth wasn’t the only thing that changed, though; the community soon began to recognize him as something of a celebrity. It seemed like suddenly his life had been turned upside down, and now people in the town were approaching him to beg for selfies because he was a viral star.
Watch the video that we’ve provided below if you want to learn more about what happened!
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