September 25, 2020
Kindness often costs very little, yet its value is immense and sometimes life changing. For 89-year-old Derlin Newey who works as a pizza delivery driver for Papa Johns in Utah, a random act of kindness was crust around the corner.
Newey took on the delivery job for 30 hours a week to earn extra money for monthly bills that his social security check doesn’t cover.
According to KSL TV, one of his delivery customers, Carlos Valdez, began sharing video recordings of Newey’s deliveries on the social media platform TikTok.
Newey quickly became a fan favorite for saying, “Hello, are you looking for some pizza?” when he delivers pizza to Valdez.
“It’s insane. Everybody loves him,” said Valdez, adding that many of his followers commented on their frustration that Newey had to work still. “Somebody at that age should not be working that much.”
The Valdez family decided to create a crowdsource campaign to help raise money for Dewey from his spreading the word to the family's 53k followers. Valdez said the TikTok community collectively came together to raise $12,069 for the “Grandpa pizza man.”
Valdez along with the KSL news producer made a surprise special delivery to gift Newey at his door.
Newey (who doesn’t even know what TikTok is) said in tears, “How do I ever say thank you? I don’t know what to say,” adding, “I don’t know what to say, except thank you.”