Therra Gwyn-Jaramillo was a woman who had fallen on rough times and was struggling not only to make ends meet but to keep her life together. She lives with and is a full-time caretaker for her disabled brother and also cares for a number of animals she rescued. To add to her troubles her hot water heater had recently failed and that was going to be another $4,000 she would have to come up with.
Because of these hard times, a very dear friend Mary gave Therra a $250 gift card to Whole Foods. Therra was beside herself with excitement to be able to not only buy fresh, real food for herself and her brother but also new food for her pets as well. Because of her financial situation, she wasn’t able to shop there very often and this would be a wonderful treat.
What Therra didn’t know was that a stranger would come to her rescue that day with a completely random act of kindness.
Anyone who has ever been to a Whole Foods can relate to the problem that everything looks good, everything makes you want to be a gourmet chef and pretty much everything costs more than an average grocery store. It is very easy to lose track of your budget amongst the endless aisles of organic and fresh. Unfortunately that day this is what would happen to Therra.
Therra had not only been dealing with her everyday stress but her husband had also died four years earlier from brain cancer. She had been struggling ever since on an emotional, financial and physical level to try and recover and find some sort of normal. She felt she was constantly in a daze trying to keep it all together.
At the check out line Therra realized she had well exceeded her $250 gift card limit and began to panic.
As she realized her budget error, she noticed that the pet food she had picked out was being rung up on the bill of the person in front of her. She went to grab the food back saying it was hers and the stranger said he would take care of it for her. She was stunned at his generosity but continued to tell the cashier to stop ringing things in trying to bring the bill down. As she did that the stranger looked at her again and said “I got this, all of this” and he paid her full bill of $375 leaving her the $250 gift card to use on another day.
In complete shock, she started to cry as she began talking to the man who told her his name was Chris. She could barely form sentences wondering who this person was and how they could be so generous. All she could think was he’s an angel. At one point all she could ask was simply “who are you?” and his response? “Just a guy”.
Therra was taken aback to learn that her angel was not “just a guy” but in fact a very famous musical artist; Ludacris.
Once the cashier told her who he was, Therra was blown away. He didn’t know her husband had died, that she took care of her disabled brother or that she was in fact a survivor of the devastating wake Hurricane Katrina left behind, including the loss of her mother. Therra had been through more than any one person should have to endure, but he didn’t know any of this. He simply helped a stranger that needed it.
Therra’s message to the world is “Be like Ludacris… Pay it forward. We can, every one of us, do SOMEthing for others. You never know a stranger’s full story when you reach out a hand and yank them into a better place.”
To help further this idea of love and kindness, Therra has now raised over $1,000 to support Ludacris’ namesake charity The Ludacris Foundation, which helps empower youth through education and community initiatives. She continues to pay it forward and hopefully, this beautiful story will help others do the same.
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