An Arkansas man who walked 11 miles to and from work each day to support his young daughter is trading in his walking shoes for a set of wheels thanks to his coworkers.
VIDEO: Man Who Had to Walk to Work Gifted with Car
For the past seven months, Trenton Lewis, a 21-year-old single father, walked 5.5 miles each way from his residence to work, sometimes getting up at midnight to make it for his 4 a.m. shift at the UPS center in Little Rock, WISH reported.
Lewis said his daughter was his primary motivation for making the long treks to work by foot each day.
“I wanted to be with my daughter, to be able to support her. I wanted to be a father,” Lewis said, adding that he was never late to his job.
Lewis did not tell his UPS coworkers about his trek, but his coworker Kenneth Bryant took notice and wanted to help, KARK reported.
“If someone has that type of determination, I’d be willing to help them,” Bryant said. “We just wanted to lend somebody a helping hand.”
Bryant began asking other coworkers to see if he could get them to pitch in some money to purchase Lewis a car.
“It caught on like wildfire,” Bryant said of his idea.
Once Bryant and several others raised enough money, they surprised the 21-year-old with keys to a car, which cost around $2,000.
“This is my first car,” Lewis said. “I have great, awesome coworkers.”
According to Lewis’s coworkers, not all of the people who donated money for the vehicle knew Lewis personally. Some heard the single father’s story and wanted to help.
A similar story took place in 2017 when a group of UPS employees in Alabama surprised their 19-year-old coworker who walked a total of ten miles to work each day with a car.