News

Actions

Here's what happened when a woman gave her purse to a homeless man

Posted at 10:43 PM, Oct 01, 2016
and last updated 2016-10-03 12:05:41-04

CINCINNATI -- Thirty minutes till kickoff, Renee Williams didn’t want to miss any of Thursday’s matchup between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Miami Dolphins.

But she had a problem.

Williams’ purse was too large to take into the game, and her car was parked several blocks away. She thought about throwing her bag away or leaving it on the side of the street.

Instead, she found a homeless man and offered him five dollars to watch her purse for her while she was at the game.

“It was a toss in the air,” Williams said. “It really was, more or less, if it’s there, it’s there. If it’s not, it’s not.”

Three hours later, the man was still there, and he returned her purse with a smile.

Williams hugged the man, snapped a photo with him and gave him the rest of the cash she had.

“The first thing I wanted to do was take a picture with him so I could show the world, ‘Hey there are people out here that aren’t bad,’” Williams said. 

When she posted the photo of the man on Facebook later that night, she didn’t expect it to go viral.

She said it wasn’t about the cash she gave him, and her purse wasn’t even very valuable to her. She was just moved that he kept his word.

“You never know what their situation might be, and there could be a very big heart behind a dirty face or dirty hands or no belongings,” Williams said. 

“He definitely proved that.”