Anna Davidson is the owner of Jessie Jean’s Historic 25th Cafe in Ogden, Utah. In the 20 years during which she and her husband have run the place, they’ve seen many people pass by and witnessed many incredible things. But a photo that they took recently and posted on Facebook along with the story behind it has gone viral.
As Anna was looking through the window one day, she spotted a woman stuck in the traffic and blocking it because of a flat tire. The poor woman had no idea what to do and asked people around to help her, but no one was willing to stop. Well, except for someone Anna knew very well. A homeless man named Charles “Chuck” Logan who was a regular at her cafe.
Once everyone started speaking of the kindness Chuck offered, the woman with the flat tire, Shuree Michelle spoke of it and thanked her savior publicly.
“Out comes this guy and he asked if I had a spare tire and a jack,” she told Yahoo Lifestyle. “He didn’t hesitate to help — it was very sweet.”
Chuck’s deed not only helped Michelle, but also the way people from the community saw the homeless people sticking around the area. Namely, most of the Ogden residents were against homeless people living on their streets, but now that they have seen how generous one of them was, they realized they misjudged them in the first place.
During the period when large population of government IRS workers lost their jobs because of the government shutdown, Anna’s cafe offered discounts and it attracted homeless people even more, which community members didn’t like.
Anna told Yahoo Lifestyle:
“We have about 5,000 government workers living in Ogden so when they couldn’t work, it was traumatic. We figured, ‘If we’re going to lose our business, we may as well help people on our way out.”
At the time, Anna’s place, with the help of local donations, started offering coffee and beignets for only $2. This made many furious because that meant many homeless would start visiting the place and the city.
But Anna and her husband didn’t care, because they believe everyone deserves a hot meal. On top of that, by sharing Chuck’s photo they proved everyone who was against them wrong. Because Chuck was in fact the only person who lent a helping hand to someone in need.
Now, customers can add a “Pay it forward” extra to their bill. Money that are used for meals each day.
“I felt like the universe was telling me to do this,” said Anna.
The kind homeless man is now part of the cafe, where he cleans and gets to have a meal and some money.
“He’s a safety net around here,” Davidson said.
This is Anna’s original post.
“Looked out the window to see this happening. This is Chuck… he’s homeless and works his ass off helping every day in the cafe. This is ‘one of those people’ that get labeled. Ya know the ones everyone wants outta sight, outta mind. I didn’t see anyone else out helping this young lady, just Chuck… the homeless guy… thank you Chuck.” #findthekind and #kindnessmatters.
Yahoo Lifestyle contacted Chuck too as they wanted to hear his thoughts on everything that was going on.
“Treat people as they would like to be treated, with respect,” he said, matter-of-factly.
Chuck is an incredible man and an example of why we should never judge a book by its cover.