A new video from Youtuber JoshPalerLin is taking the Internet by storm.
Lin’s YouTube channel, which currently has over 700,000 subscribers, usually features pranks and other outlandish activities. For his latest video, Lin decided he would give a homeless man $100 and then follow him to see what he did with the money.
At first, the man, named Thomas, can be seen walking into a liquor store. He emerges a short while later with two black plastic bags and heads off down the street. Lin’s cameraman follows, watching as Thomas heads to a nearby park and immediately begins distributing packaged food to other homeless people at the park.
Unable to help himself, Lin walks up to Thomas and expresses his shock.
“I feel I owe you an apology,” Lin tells Thomas. “You went to a liquor store earlier… I thought you were gonna buy alcohol or something.”
“Well, there’s things money can’t buy,” Thomas replies. “I get a happiness out of what I’m doing.”
Thomas then told Lin how he became homeless, saying he had to quit his job to care for his sick parents, and when they both died and their home was sold, he found himself on the street.
“There’s a lot of people who are just victims of circumstance,” Thomas told Lin. “And they didn’t go homeless ’cause they’re lazy. There’s a lot of good people that are homeless.”
A crowdfunding campaign set up for Thomas in the wake of the video’s release, called “Help Thomas to Get a Fresh Start,” has collected nearly $90,000, 895% more than the campaign’s $10,000 goal, with 22 days remaining.
“People think I changed his life,” Lin told Today.com. “For me, it’s completely the opposite. I feel that he changed my life.”