A UPS worker’s act of kindness in Georgia goes viral

ROSWELL, Ga. (CBS46) – A simple act of kindness has now resulted in a lifelong friendship.

A UPS driver stopped earlier this month after delivering a package in a Roswell neighborhood in the middle of his busy shift to wish the parents of a newborn boy well.

He also shared that he also had a son around the same time.

“If this is the ‘It’s a Boy’s House’ that forgot the bird’s name, I hope all goes well with your newborn. I had a child around the same time as you guys and I just hope everything goes well. God bless, happy holidays,” the UPS worker, later identified as Marietta’s Dallen Harrell, said in a Nest doorbell video.

The doorbell camera belongs to Jessica Kitchel and her husband. “I just played it and saw his message was blown away by it,” she told us on Thursday. “I think I needed it the most at that moment. Just an encouragement.”

Kitchel posted us on social media where it was quickly shared and viewed nearly 60,000 times.

Days later, Kitchel and Harrell finally met.

“I was so excited to speak to him and just thank him for what his message meant to me,” Kitchel said.

However, this meeting was only the beginning. Since Harrell had also just had a baby boy, Kitchel wanted to thank him for his sympathy.

“I asked him if he had a baby registry to share with us and he and his fiancee haven’t had a baby shower yet,” she said.

She put his registration links online and almost everything Harrell and his fiancee needed was gifted to them by people they didn’t even know.

“Total strangers. I wouldn’t know them from a can of paint. Only vessels of God,” Harrell told us on Thursday afternoon.

He says he was also promoted at work. “My life kind of flipped and changed overnight.”

But the greatest gift, they both say, is a friendship they forged that all started with less than twenty seconds of kindness. “I don’t want it to be a one-time deal. Not one season, for life for sure,” Harrell said.

Kitchel says there’s also a bigger lesson we can all take away from this. “It’s so easy right now to focus on what’s not going right and the fact that we all had to see someone just take a second and show a simple act of kindness, that really meant a lot. “

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