CHESTERFIELD COUNTY, Va. -- Sara Orcutt has her hands full. The real estate agent and mother of three, her youngest just three months old, tries to lighten the load by ordering groceries online.
"The thing that got me about having three is that you have more kids than you have hands," Orcutt joked while standing at her computer in her Chesterfield home off Beach Road.
On December 30, she placed an online order.
Later that day, her husband noticed something: The delivery driver going down their long driveway wasn't really a driver at all.
"My husband came inside and he's like, 'Sara, are you expecting anybody on a bike?' and I said, 'No,' and he said, 'Are you expecting anybody?' and I said, 'Yeah, I placed a grocery order but I assumed they're not delivering it on a bike,'" Orcutt recounted.
Their delivery 'biker' was a man named Jonathan, who, on that day, delivered 20 pounds of cat food, a gallon of milk, and about 30 other items, all on a bike.
Orcutt said he had items tied down with cords and had other items in his backpack.
Orcutt was able to get his name and snapped a photo of him, after tracking him down on the winding road outside her home after he had forgotten to drop off a few items.
"I'm like, 'Do you do this every day?' and he's like, 'Yes ma'am.' I mean, he was so kind from the first words out of his mouth. And I just said, 'In the cold?' and he said, 'Yep, every day,'" she said.
She wanted to help.
"I couldn't help but think, and I wasn't assuming the worst of his situation, but I couldn't help but think with the time of year, being the holidays, it's cold, that he's just out delivering groceries on a bike because he simply enjoys it," Orcutt said. "So I thought there has to be a way that I can help this man."
Orcutt turned to Facebook, asking if people in the area knew Jonathan's story. Her post was shared almost 900 times, garnering dozens of comments from people saying they'd seen him delivering in the rain and in the cold, carrying things as large as a ladder while riding his bike around Chesterfield.
But no one knew who he was.
"I just kind of let it go a little bit and figured maybe one day somebody would come across him again, and during that time a lot of people said, 'If you find him and there's a need, I'd love to help with you,'" Orcutt said.
A few days later, Orcutt ordered another grocery delivery. Coincidentally, Jonathan would be her deliverer.
"When I saw that he had been assigned to it because there was a picture with their name, that I was going to talk to him, because I was like, I gotta know more about this guy and this can't just be pure coincidence," she explained.
When he delivered her groceries for a second time, she struck up a conversation with him. She learned that he lived nearby and often delivered along Hull Street Road as well.
She also learned about his family's financial situation and again reached out to Facebook to begin fundraising.
The community responded, raising more than $14,000 in a day.
"In 24 hours, the community just said yes to a complete stranger," Orcutt said. "I went to bed that first night and it was six or seven grand, and by the time I woke up the next day it had almost doubled."
Orcutt was able to give him a check with all the money raised and start a separate GoFundMe account for him. He was able to pay off his bike and order a car to make deliveries a bit easier.
But it wasn't just the money that made a difference, Orcutt shared.
It was a listening ear.
“He stops, he kickstands his bike, and he starts coming back up the hill from where he was walking to, and I turn around and I’m like 'Yeah?' and he’s like, 'I just have to tell you this. Thank you so much for listening to my story. He’s like, 'There’s not many people in this world that would.'"
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