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Journalism of Courage
Imagine toiling hard to make ends meet and suddenly one day a stranger offers you a lump sum of money with no strings attached. Three workers at Atlanta airport in the US had such an experience recently after an author and speaker, Carlos Whittaker, raised money for them through Instagram during a layover.
The workers Phyllis, Brandon and Josh were shocked when Whittaker told them he would give them $4,000 each. As Instagram users flooded Whittaker’s account with donations, the next day he called the trio up to say they would get $35,000 each. Whittaker gave the food court workers $110,000 in total and documented their reactions on Instagram.
Phyllis was seen spellbound when he heard the news. Whittaker is heard saying, “The smile on your face and the way you serve is mind-blowing.” And Josh says, “That will help us so much. I can get my parents a house. I will be able to take care of my family and the people I care about.”
Whittaker is seen teary-eyed in the video shared on his Instagram account. The story won hearts online and left many users emotional. A user commented, “This is so beautiful. I honestly didn’t know people working full time made that little. But you could tell by the way they interacted before that they lived so happily in the world. I’m so glad that something so good happened to such good people who could really, really use it.” Another user wrote, “How long before an instafamilia statue gets put up at the Atlanta airport?! Ya’ll are changing lives and legacies!”
Whittaker explained his initiative to CBS News, “I just stopped and thought to myself, these people are working so hard. There were only three of them working in the food court and they were cleaning up everyone’s food and no one was paying attention to them.”
“I thought they need to be seen. And I just wanted to see them. I didn’t know if it was going to be 100 bucks each, or 1,000 bucks each. Definitely didn’t think it was $35,000 each but I just felt Holy Spirit saying ‘These are the ones, go bless them,'” he added.
