Dan, the delivery driver, goes viral: Kindness is not rare in America

You are listening to the Hidden Lightness on America out loud talk radio.

I'm your host Jimmy Hinton.

You remember the delivery driver in Tennessee, the elderly man who had a fundraiser.

There was a woman who named Brittany Smith who saw him coming up the steps and he was

caught on her ring camera.

She delivered Starbucks to the home via DoorDash and she felt really bad for him.

He was working into his 80s and couldn't afford retirement.

She started to go fund me and that go fund me is about to reach $1 million.

I'd say that's pretty healthy retirement for him and his wife so it's really cool and

it was a heartwarming story and it should be.

But there's another one in the news.

It's another driver, another delivery driver.

He's a dominoes driver and it's another state.

This is in the state of Idaho.

The gentleman was 70 years old and he shows up at a door and dominoes had called the customer

and said our delivery driver had just left and unfortunately we were out of soda.

That was part of the order.

They had ordered a couple of two-liter bottles.

The store was out.

The customer had already paid and now the driver was gone and so they were just alerting

the customer saying you're probably not going to get your soda.

It turns out that the delivery driver stopped and paid for soda with his own money on the

way to deliver to the customer.

The customer, Brian Wilson, was actually really touched by this.

You see he had ordered a diet coke to go with his family's meal.

Then he got the voicemail from dominoes and said that they didn't have any diet

coke left.

So the driver shows up and Wilson was absolutely shocked to see two liters of diet coke with

the pizza.

He was like, well, I thought that they were out of soda must have been some kind of mix-up.

So in the viral video, because of course Mr. Wilson uploaded the video to TikTok, but

you can hear Dan the delivery driver say that he stopped at the store on his own to pick

up the soda.

Paid for it with his own money and he was going to have none of it.

Can't show up to a customer without soda, especially if the customer paid for it.

Well, who's going to pay for it?

The delivery driver.

So with his own money, he bought soda.

Now it's not that huge of a deal.

If we're talking about monetary value, you're talking what, a couple bucks, a little bit

of time that it took for him to stop at the store, but it's the fact that he did a really

kind gesture and that's what blew away Mr. Wilson.

So Brian Wilson was blown away in his own words.

He was blown away.

It shocked him.

Here's a quote.

He said, we're honestly blown away.

That level of care and kindness is rare these days.

That's what he wrote on, you guessed it, a GoFundMe page.

Now I'm going to take a little bit of issue with that.

Not the fact that he started to go fund me.

I think that's really cool.

I think it's noble.

I'm all for it.

When you have somebody in their 70s who's still working hard, and by the way, this was

his second job, you have somebody working in their 70s, and they're clearly working

hard.

They have a good work ethic.

He went out of his way to make sure that the customer had the soda that the store ran

out of.

I'm all for rewarding that behavior, 100%, I'm 100% behind that.

I love that there's a GoFundMe.

It's already raised tens of thousands of dollars.

I think that's incredible.

I think it's great.

I'm not one of these funny duds.

It's like, wow, what they get rewarded for doing their job?

What about other people?

What about other people that do kind things, and they don't get GoFundMe's?

There's always going to be that naysayer that they take issue with this.

We ignore those voices.

I think it's a great thing.

I'm all for it.

I love that stories like this touch the hearts of Americans, and that Americans step up to

the plate.

That's the bigger story.

But this idea that this level of care and kindness is a rare thing, I disagree with that.

Now, I'm not here to criticize Brian Wilson.

Don't mishear me.

I'm not here to split hairs.

I'm not here to pick on the homeowner for doing something kind.

I think it's fantastic.

I think it did the right thing.

The fact that he started to goFundMe, really cool, great idea.

But this idea that it's a rare thing.

That level of care and kindness is rare these days.

I disagree with that.

I'm not disagreeing to rain on anybody's party.

I'm disagreeing because I see so many stories, time and time and time again day in and

day out of people going above and beyond.

Now I just shared a story the other day with somebody.

We were talking about passports and I forget how this came up.

But somehow this idea of passports and when you renew and don't renew and all that kind

of stuff that came up and it reminded me of a story back in 2019 I had to update my

passport.

I had just been in Haiti and had zero problem.

But when I returned a couple months later I was going to Ecuador and Ecuador had just

recently changed their policy that if your passport was going to expire within six months

of your trip you had to have it renewed.

They wouldn't let you, they wouldn't allow you to come into the country.

Alright, fine, no problem.

I've renewed my passport plenty of times before.

So you mail it in, you have to mail your old passport in and to make a long story short

it ended up taking a couple of months and I did this with plenty of time before the trip.

Plenty of time.

Typically it takes I don't know a couple of weeks, three weeks at the most.

But for some reason the government was working extra slow.

I know this is a shocker, this comes as a shocker to most of you.

I know that.

The government's known for being expedient, right?

They're very quick at what they do.

They're very efficient at what they do.

Of course I'm being sarcastic.

You never know what you're going to get with the government.

So this was a time where my old passport got lost or tied up or something.

And I was trying to track it and they were like, well, your passport's in Connecticut.

And this is, I'm talking days before the trip, like a couple days before the trip.

And I was like, alright, I'll drive to Connecticut.

I used to do that a lot when I drove truck, I would flip the trip and you know, that up

and back you're talking maybe, I don't know, depending on where it's at in Connecticut,

you're talking maybe 15, 16 hours.

Not a big deal.

I will do that.

I will personally drive there to get the passport.

Well, we can't do that.

We can't just give you the new passport.

So I, alright, then give me my old one back.

And the nearest place was Philadelphia if you wanted to do an expedited passport, but

you had to have your old passport in hand.

So I was like, no matter which way I turn, it's a problem.

Alright, so they kept messing me around and they were like, it's coming.

It's shown that your new passport is done.

I'm like, then why is it not sent?

If it's done, just put the dumb thing in the mail.

Then they had a tracking number for it.

They're like, well, we do have a mailing tracking number.

So I looked it up.

That tracking number dated back like a week.

And it showed that there had been a tracking order that had been generated, but it never

actually left the facility.

So I'm like, you got to be kidding.

A week.

For seven days, this thing's been sitting here.

And you guys didn't think to drop it in the mail.

So anyway, this kind of went back and forth, back and forth.

Finally, the day before I was to leave on this trip, it showed that it made it like

30 miles north to the next USPS facility.

And I'm like, I'm scrambling and I'm like, come on, come on, come on, come on.

So I go to my post office and I'm like, look, I need this passport.

I'm literally leaving in the morning for Ecuador with my family.

And I was leading a group from church.

I had to have it.

And they're like, well, we can contact your route driver and see if she can kind of maybe

just deliver it early.

And I'm like, well, that's assuming that it comes down from the hub that it's at.

So long story short, they won't give me her number, which is fine.

I'm perfect.

Like, I'm not saying that people should demand that we get the personal cell phone number

of our mail carriers.

So I get it.

I'm cool with that.

But I'm at the mercy of now my mail carrier.

Long behold, the next morning, it's like eight o'clock in the morning.

She shows up at my house in the mail truck and she hands me my new passport.

I'm like, how did you pull this off?

She's like, well, I had to drive up to where it was to guarantee that we had it.

I had to drive 30 miles, 60 miles round trip.

She drove up there personally, got my passport, hand delivered it to me.

And as soon as that passport was in my hand, we took off for the airport.

And I made the trip.

And I tell the story to tell you that I see these kinds of things every single day in my

own life when I talk to other people over and over and over again.

And it's not well to do people.

It's not people that are just they have extra time and they have extra money and they just

do the stuff because they can.

It's ordinary people like you and I, it's hardworking Americans.

It's people in their 70s who are who are still delivering pizzas to try to make ends meet.

Those are the ordinary people who are doing extraordinary things every single day.

So I don't think this is that rare of a thing.

I really don't.

I think that we live in a nation where people are just incredibly generous.

They're generous with their time, they're generous with their money.

They go above and beyond constantly and that's why I have such little patients whenever

people trash Americans.

When they target young people and talk about how lazy they are.

When they target poor people, say they'll never amount to anything.

When they target wealthy people and say that they're rich and greedy, I don't like when

Americans trash Americans, we're all in this country together.

And the reality is that it doesn't matter if people are extremely rich or extremely

poor or anything in between, American people for the most part go above and beyond.

Now that's not to say that there aren't ignorant people out there, there are.

That's not to say that there aren't abusive people out there, there are.

That's not to say that there aren't selfish people and prideful people and evil people.

Oh, they exist, they're out there.

But the majority of the American people go above and beyond.

I've seen this over and over and over again.

And the reason I'm saying this is because it's so easy to fall into this temptation to

feel like most people are lazy to feel like most people don't care.

To feel like most people wouldn't lift a finger to help anybody else and they would rather

watch their neighbor rot and rye then pain then to actually step in and do something to

help them.

That is not there's a difference between feelings and reality.

And I would argue that reality shows us time and time again that most Americans, and

I'm not saying it's like 99% but I would say at least 60 to 75% of people.

They will go above and beyond if they understand, if they know that there's a need, if they

know that somebody else is suffering, I'd say that the majority of Americans would do

something that they do do something to help people in need.

And I love that about America.

I love that we're a great nation.

I love that we're a nation that's wealthy, that our economy's doing well.

Even though it doesn't feel that way sometimes, we have to look at the reality.

And people consistently and constantly go above and beyond.

So that's number one really cool.

Number two, it's really cool that the American people when they see people do kind things,

it moves them.

It moves their heart, it motivates them.

And I absolutely love that.

Over last year, I highlighted Ryan Trayhan's journey across America and how his goal was

to raise $1 million for St. Jude's research hospital.

And he ended up, I think there was $11 million or somewhere close to $12 million that

Ryan Trayhan ended up raising.

The American people went above and beyond, I mean people went nuts to help.

They were like busting down the door like, hey, how can we do more?

It was businesses.

It was individuals.

That was at a time when people were saying how bad the economy was and inflation was the

worst that it had ever been.

And he raised a record amount of money.

This is who we are as Americans.

And this is good news.

Well, we'll talk more about this story after the break.

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Dan the delivery guy.

He has been dubbed that way anyway.

He's a delivery man with dominoes who is just a few weeks away from retiring, but he's

in his 70s and he's been working his job with dominoes as a second job for 14 years

as a side hustle to raise a little bit more money to cover bills.

I don't know the state of his financial condition, but I imagine he probably needed this job to

try to stay for retirement and God bless him because he is retiring at the age of 70.

That's pretty cool, but Dan the delivery driver has gone viral.

There's a GoFundMe that has raised tens of thousands of dollars for him already.

It's only been up for a short time.

That was because he went above and beyond as he delivered pizzas to a homeowner.

Dominoes was out of diet coke.

That was what he ordered.

I guess the house owner, Brian Wilson, had ordered a couple diet sodas.

Well dominoes ran out and by the time the delivery man, Dan the delivery man walked out

the door.

They thought that he just forgot that they were out.

Well Brian Wilson had already paid for his order online.

So when Dan the delivery driver showed up at his house, the homeowner, Brian Wilson

was surprised to see that he had a couple of bottles of coke in his hand.

When asked about it, he said, oh I stopped at the store and I picked them up.

So Brian was really shocked about that.

He was in his words, he was blown away.

He said man, you didn't have to do that and then he felt really bad because he tipped

them but he was out of cash and he said, I wish I could tip you more.

This is all caught on video by the way.

He said, I wish I could tip you more and Dan said, oh don't worry about it.

He's like, you are a tip me enough and I'm happy to do it.

So it just was this really cool encounter and so Brian the homeowner, he started a fundraiser.

I'm going to read this on GoFundMe just to hear what he said.

But he posted the video to TikTok, it instantly went viral.

I think it's had well over a million views and counting and people just loved it.

And I think it's really cool.

I think it's incredible.

Here's what he wrote on GoFundMe.

He said last night something simple turned into something really special and we can't

stop thinking about it.

On a busy Friday night, we ordered dinner from Domino's along with a diet coke.

While we were waiting, we got a voicemail from our delivery driver, Dan, letting us know

that they were out of diet coke.

But he'd gladly bring something else if we let him know what we wanted.

We tried calling the store back but he'd already left for delivery.

No big deal.

We figured we'd just take whatever substitution came with the order.

But when Dan arrived, he surprised us.

He apologized again for the inconvenience and then told us he had stopped at the store

himself to pick up diet coke for us.

On a busy Friday night, during deliveries, completely out of his own time and effort,

we were honestly blown away.

That level of care and kindness is rare these days.

We wanted to tip him more but didn't have cash on hand.

We told him we'd call the store to leave a glowing review and come back with a cash tip.

That's when Dan shared something that made this moment even more meaningful.

He's been working at Domino's as a second job for 14 years.

And he's retiring in just a few weeks.

So here's what we're hoping to do.

TikTok loved Dan's story and suggested we come together to give him the send off he

deserves.

If a small act of kindness can make such an impact on us, imagine what a community of

people can do for him.

Let's show Dan that his kindness didn't go unnoticed.

Let's help him step into retirement feeling appreciated, supported and celebrated.

Every little bit helps.

And even if you can't donate, sharing this story means just as much.

That's really cool.

But I said before the break, the one thing that I actually disagree with is that acts

like this are not common.

I think they're incredibly common.

I think that most Americans go above and beyond regardless of age and social, economic

status, race, it doesn't matter.

People in America are generous.

And that my friends is the hidden lightness.

It's that we all have the hidden lightness inside of us, all of us do.

There's absolutely zero excuse why we all can't use our hidden lightness to bless other

people as many, many, many people do.

And I think that's really cool.

I think that's really special.

I think that's what makes America so great is that it's full of so many great people.

And that's one of the things that Rush Limbaugh used to talk about.

And he got a lot of criticism for that.

He talks about the exceptionalism of America.

And people would argue and no, America sucks, America's terrible.

That's looking all the crime.

Look at this.

Look at that.

Look at all these bad things that do happen.

But generally, overall, America is great, which truly, truly are blessed in this nation.

And the fact that we have millions upon millions upon millions of giving people, ordinary people,

it's special to me because I got to tell you, I fell into that trap for a short time.

Of believing that most people were lazy, most people didn't really want to volunteer at

church.

I was really struggling or our volunteer numbers were low for actually quite a few years.

We had super low turnout for a lot of things.

And so I blamed the people, not to their face, but in my mind, I was like, man, what

is it about society that makes people just unwilling to volunteer?

And I presumed that they just didn't care.

They just don't care.

They don't care that my wife and I, my family, we're all grinding just day after day after

day.

And they see us.

They see us struggling.

They see us struggling to keep up.

And they just don't care.

See, that was what I had in my mind.

That was the idea that I had been fed this lie that people don't want to volunteer their

time, that people don't care.

I looked at the contributions and they were sad to say the least.

And then those ideas started going through my mind.

I was like, well, people just, they're not giving my wife and I are very like we pride

ourselves and being very generous.

We more than tied.

We have more than 10% that we automatically skim off of our budget as soon as our paychecks

land into the bank.

We have a document that automatically calculates more, it's more than 10% and we give it all

away.

100% of that gets given away.

We love to give, we work, I'm so blessed to have a wife who has a very giving heart.

She loves to give her family, her parents, very, very giving people.

My family, all of them, very giving, exceptional givers, literally 100% of all the people in

my family, and I've got a really big family, they're all givers, doesn't matter.

We have people who are very wealthy and we have people who are doing okay, but I wouldn't

consider them wealthy.

We have everything in between in our family, all 100% of them are giving.

That's just been my experience, in my own personal circle, in my own life, and so I was buying

this idea that people just, they're not generous.

People don't want to give, they don't care at church, I don't know what it is, why are

people so stingy, they don't want to give their time, they don't want to give their money

that I know they have, I see some of the cars that they drive, excuse me, and then it

hit me, and really it was recently, it was actually on this show that I had a really

big aha moment, and I started learning about microgiving, in fact I did a show on that,

that there's a trend in the United States of America, and people are absolutely flocking

to microgiving.

Instead of volunteering for six months at a time, they'll volunteer for a project.

Put me on a project, and I'll see the project to completion, and then don't ask me to volunteer

again, I'll volunteer when I have time, or when I can.

Code microgiving, with the way that people give, see we're very, very dedicated with consistency.

When we give literally every single week, and on mode school, I write a check.

We write a check, that goes in the contribution plate.

We have monthly donations that we do for different organizations and ministries.

We write a check, put an expensive stamp on an envelope, and we put it in the mail.

We're old school.

And I'm just so hardwired for that consistency, and so I view, or used to, used to view that

inconsistency as, well people are just blowing their money on other things, and they just

don't care, they're not givers, they're not giving it to God, right, that's the assumption.

But they're not learned about microgiving, and that this is our culture, this defines

America in 2026.

People are microgivers, and so they might give $50 to church one week, and the next week,

they're filling somebody's gas tank at the gas pumps.

And the next week, they're dropping a $50 tip to a waitress, who looks like she or he

is struggling, waiter waitress.

Now, this is microgiving, and so instead of that consistency that we've been so accustomed

to, it's still consistent, but it's consistently done in these little microbursts.

And that's why GoFundMe and other crowdsource platforms are wildly popular.

Listen to these numbers, this is going to blow your mind.

I started looking at these numbers, and I'm absolutely floored.

You're ready for this?

GoFundMe, that's just one platform.

There are a lot of other crowdsourcing platforms.

GoFundMe is obviously one of the most popular.

GoFundMe hosts over 100,000 new campaigns every single month, averaging over 3,000 new

campaigns daily.

The platform has facilitated over 40 billion dollars in total donations over 15 years,

averaging 50 million dollars raised every single week.

It handles roughly two donations per second, with an average donation amount of $77.

Is that not incredible?

Is that you cannot look at Americans say, yeah, these, these acts are, they're a few

and far between.

It's really rare when, when somebody gives, when somebody's generous of their time, of

their money, it's really, it's really rare.

Folks, this is one platform, one singular platform, 100,000 new campaigns, new ones.

That's not the ones that carry over.

1,000 new campaigns, 100,000 every single month, 3,000 new campaigns every single day, 7 days

a week, 52 weeks out of a year, every single day, 3,000 new campaigns land on the platform.

80 billion total dollars in donations over 15 years, 50 million dollars raised every

single week.

Two donations per second, every second.

There are two new donations, averaging $77 for across all donations.

Every single time you get two of those dings per second, that's $77 coming into the platform.

Don't tell me that people aren't generous.

Don't tell me that this is a rarity.

And this folks is what drives America.

This is the engine that drives compassion and kindness and prosperity and wealth sharing.

You remember President Obama?

Yeah, I have to redistribute the wealth.

Translation, I'm a socialist and we're going to twist your arm and we're going to

rob from the rich and give to the poor.

How does that work out?

For any nation, I mean, look at Cuba, look at Venezuela.

How does that work for countries like that?

It will collapse a nation every single time, 100% of the time, guaranteed.

But you know what really works?

Giving people freedom to be themselves, to give, to give when they want, how they want,

as much as they want, you give them total freedom.

And that's what these platforms are.

There's not one single person pressuring people to give.

Nobody's gilting people into giving.

Nobody's telling them they're forced to give.

Nobody's telling them we're going to tax you.

We're going to garnish your wages until a certain percentage is pumped into the plate

called GoFundMe.

Nobody is forcing people to do this.

This is all 100% free will.

You give people freedom and people will give.

That's pretty, pretty incredible.

Actually, very incredible.

I want to look at the number of people who give on the platform.

You're ready for this?

42 million donations made in one year.

42 million.

And most of those are individual people.

So roughly, some people are repeat givers.

But generally, you could say there were probably at least 30 million unique donors,

people who donated in one year.

That's incredible.

We are hard up on another break here.

All of our shows do go to podcasts the next day.

After the broadcast is heard on talk radio,

you can hear them on your favorite podcast app.

Be sure to check out the America Out Loud app.

It's incredible.

It's phenomenal.

Dan, the delivery driver, goes viral: Kindness is not rare in America

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