After This Man Walked Over 20 Miles To Work, Something Incredible Happened
Walter Carr had no other choice: he needed to walk 20 miles for his first day of work. His family needed him! Then something amazing happened…
Generous People All Around
Go Fund Me
Lamey knew what she needed to do in order to truly help Carr: she surprised him by setting up a GoFundMe account in order to raise the money to fix his car. The goal started off quite reasonable: $2,000 – enough money to fix Carr’s vehicle and allow him to live a normal life. However, the young man’s story had gone viral, and the world had much more planned for him.
Like Carr’s story, his GoFundMe immediately went viral. By the time it closed, thousands of people had donated more than $100,000 in order to not only help Carr get his vehicle back but also put him back in school. Still, believe it or not, this remarkable story does not end there…
Meet Walter Carr
When this story begins, Walter Carr and his mother had recently moved to Alabama in search of a better life for themselves. However, a new place meant new expenses. While Carr wanted to continue his college studies, the new rent payments made that impossible. Sadly, Carr’s mother could not afford rent on her own, which meant that he would need to stop going to college and get a job to help the family.
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Even worse, neither Carr nor his mother truly wanted to be in Alabama in the first place. That’s right! Unfortunately, they had needed to move there as the result of a terrible natural disaster…
Hurricane Katrina
For those that don’t know, Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans, Louisiana in 2005, destroyed more than 800,000 homes, making it one of the most devastating storms in United States history. Heartbreakingly, the Carrs’ family home was among the many houses that were utterly destroyed by the hurricane.
Wikimedia Commons
After the storm, the Carrs tried to find a way to stay in New Orleans, their home. However, it was simply not possible. So, they needed to move to Alabama – but things were not any better there. The rents were high, and Carr and his mother found themselves in very hard times. Thankfully, fate had something amazing in store for the two of them…
Moving On
After Hurricane Katrina, Carr and his mother moved to the suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama, to the town of Homewood (seen in the photo). However, due to the influx of people from New Orleans, the pair found the rental prices very high. So, in addition to needing to find a new place to live and adapt to a new city, Carr was also going to need to find a new job.
Homewood Website
While Carr quickly found a job at a fast-food restaurant, he soon realized it was simply not for him. The hours were long, and the pay was not good. In fact, Carr and his mother were barely making ends meet! Something needed to change…
Getting A New Job
All while he worked at the fast-food restaurant, Walter Carr kept looking for a new job. It certainly took him a long time but, after a few months, Carr’s hard work finally paid off: he earned an interview with the moving company Bellhops Moving! Of course, the strong, determined young man earned the job right away.
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Even better, Carr could start right away! Bellhops Moving needed the young man at his first job the very next morning, about 20 miles away. As Carr drove away from the Bellhops Moving office, it seemed like everything was going his way – then the worst happened!
Everything Breaks Down
As Carr drove home from the Bellhops Office, he felt as though nothing could go wrong. That’s precisely when his car started to make terrible noises. Fear ran down the young man’s spine – his vehicle couldn’t break down now! After all, Carr had just helped his mother pay rent, which meant he was fresh out of cash. He couldn’t afford to have his vehicle towed anywhere, let alone fixed.
Shutterstock
Thankfully, the car made it all the way home. However, when Carr tried to start it again, nothing happened. The young man tried again – still nothing. Carr could not believe it: on the eve of his new job, he had no way to get there!
Trying All He Could
After Carr realized that his vehicle wasn’t going to start again, he started thinking. He needed a way out of this dilemma and quickly! First, Carr began by sending out text message after text message, hoping one of his friends could give him a ride. Unfortunately, the young man struck out in finding a ride.
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Next, Carr looked into how much it would cost to hire a cab or take an Uber to his first day at Bellhops Moving. Sadly, it was more money than Carr was willing to spend. That’s when the answer dawned upon the young man…
Deciding to Walk
As Carr continued to mull over his predicament, he soon realized there was only one option available to him: he needed to walk to his first day of work. “I sat there and I thought, ‘How can I get to my job? What streets would I walk through? How long would take me to get there?'” the young man said in a recent interview with The Washington Post.
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Of course, Carr could not simply walk to his job without doing a little planning first. And the more he looked into the walk, the more Carr felt as though he had bit off more than he could chew…
Planning The Walk
After deciding to walk, Carr jumped on his slow computer to do a little research. While it took him a while, he planned out a route from his apartment in the town of Homewood to the house he needed to arrive at in the city of Pelham. According to Google Maps, the 20-mile walk would take Carr a total of eight hours. A former high school cross-country runner, the young man thought he could just about do it.
CNN
So, at 8 P.M., Carr ate a hearty meal of eggs and bologna, before taking a nap. Then, at might night, he awoke, put on some shoes, and grabbed his wallet, phone, and a knife to protect himself with. Then, the young man headed out into the dark…
A Lonely Road
As Carr didn’t have much money, he couldn’t afford the data to listen to music as he walked. Plus, cutting off his hearing wasn’t safe. So, the young man walked in silence – it was lonely, to say the least. However, the whole time, Carr remained focused on his goal: not losing his job. “I was just thinking about my route, how I was going to get there in the time frame I needed to,” Carr recalled.
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Around 4 A.M., Carr finally entered Pelham city limits, but he still had hours and hours to go. Still, he needed to take a rest, so he sat down in a bank parking lot. “I decided I’d rest for a minute because my legs were killing me,” Carr explained. That’s when something peculiar happened…
Sharing His Story
As Carr rested his legs in the bank parking lot, he heard the sound of a car slowly approaching. Looking up, he saw a police car pulling into the parking lot. The car pulled alongside Carr, and Officer Mark Knighten rolled down his window, asking if the young man was alright.
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Carr decided to share his story. “I said, ‘This is crazy but I’m actually heading to work. It’s my first day in the job,'” Carr later recalled to The Washington Post. The police officer could hardly believe what the young man said. The caring cop just knew that he needed to do something for the incredible worker!
Helping A Young Man Out
Officer Knighten decided he would help Carr out in more ways than one. First, the officer asked the young man when he last ate. When he heard that Carr had been walking for hours with little on his stomach, Knighten offered to take him for some breakfast. “I said, ‘I just paid my rent. I have no cash on me at all,'” recalled Carr in a recent interview.
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Thankfully, Knighten told Carr that the meal was on him. That’s right! The pair went to Whataburger with a group of other officers, who all encouraged Carr to order as much as he wanted – so he did! However, Knighten had more kindness to dispense to the young man…
One Police Officer’s Gesture
After Officer Knighten and Carr finished up at Whataburger, the officer offered to drive the young man as far as he could towards his job. Knighten dropped him off at a church not too far from his final destination. However, the police officer told Carr to hold tonight. You see, although Knighten’s shift was over and he needed to return his car, he said another officer would be by in a few hours to take him the rest of the way.
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Carr waited at the church for a little over an hour, but no other police officer appeared. As 5:30 rolled around, the young man started to think he might be late for his 8:00 A.M. job appointment. Soon enough, he decided to start walking again!
The Rest of the Way
While it took him a little bit of time, Carr found his way back to his planned-out route. Once again, his walk had begun. However, this time around, he had a belly full of Whataburger and had enjoyed a nice break off his feet.
Shutterstock
Then, as Carr walked down a two-lane highway, another police car pulled up alongside. It was Officer Scott Duffey, who had heard about the young man from Officer Knighten! And with that, Duffey drove Carr the last four miles to his moving job! However, that’s just the beginning of Carr’s amazing story…
Unbelievable News
Around 6:30 A.M., a full hour and a half before Carr was meant to arrive, Officer Duffey dropped him off at the house of Jenny Lamey, where he was supposed to meet the other movers for the job. To ensure that everything was alright, Officer Duffey walked to Lamey’s house and knocked on the door.
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“The officer told me, ‘I’ve got this nice kid in my car. He’s a great kid, he’s been walking all night to get to your house,'” Lamey said. “That’s when the tears started coming. I just started crying.” Like the police officers before her, the woman knew that she needed to do something amazing for Walter Carr!
Forging A Connection
As soon as she heard Carr’s story, Jenny Lamey invited the young man inside. In fact, she offered to give him a meal and allow him to nap in one of her beds. However, believe it or not, Carr declined. Incredibly, he actually replied, “No, I’d rather get started.” That’s right!
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In short time, the other movers from Bellhops Moving arrived, and the three got to work moving the Lameys into a new home across town. Throughout the entire process, Lamey did not hear Carr complain a single time. In fact, “everyone got along as if they were old friends!” But that’s not where Carr’s fantastic decisions and abilities end…
Never One to Stop
As stated, throughout the entire move, Jenny Lamey never heard Carr complain once. But his extraordinary abilities do not stop there. After the move, the young man somehow found the energy to play basketball with Lamey’s three sons, ages 11, 13, and 16. “I can’t imagine what kept him going,” Lamey said. “What came over him physically was supernatural. I think God helped him through.” Thankfully, at the end of the day, one of Carr’s new co-workers gave him a ride back home.
Shutterstock
Now, Lamey says that she hopes her family will enjoy a long friendship with Carr. “He’s such a humble, kindhearted person,” she said. “He’s really incredible. He said it was the way he was raised. Nothing is impossible unless you say it’s impossible.” Deep down, Lamey knew she needed to share Carr’s story with the world…
Going Straight to the Top
The next day, Lamey wanted Bellhops Moving to know just what an incredible employee they had on their hands. As soon as the moving company called, the woman called and spoke to Carr’s supervisor. As Lamey told her story – and Carr’s as well – both she and the supervisor started to cry. What the young man had done was simply emotionally overwhelming!
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The supervisor promised Lamey that she would immediately tell the higher-ups at Bellhops Moving. Even after that, though, the newly moved mom felt she needed to share the young man’s story with even more people. So, Lamey took to social media…
Telling the World
Jennifer Lamey truly wanted to share the story of Walter Carr with the whole world. “My heart just sank [for Carr],” she said at the time. “What he had endured just to be there to help me with my move.” So, Lamey took to Facebook and shared the entire account of what had occurred. Soon enough, the story went viral! As of this writing, the post had over 500 comments and nearly 10,000 shares. That’s right!
Meanwhile, Lamey started to wonder what she could do for Carr that didn’t involve sharing his story with others. She wanted to give him something tangible, something that would actually impact his life. Then, it came to her!
Generous People All Around
Lamey knew what she needed to do in order to truly help Carr: she surprised him by setting up a GoFundMe account in order to raise the money to fix his car. The goal started off quite reasonable: $2,000 – enough money to fix Carr’s vehicle and allow him to live a normal life. However, the young man’s story had gone viral, and the world had much more planned for him.
Go Fund Me
Like Carr’s story, his GoFundMe immediately went viral. By the time it closed, thousands of people had donated more than $100,000 in order to not only help Carr get his vehicle back but also put him back in school. Still, believe it or not, this remarkable story does not end there…
A Special Surprise in Store
After the Facebook post and GoFundMe went viral, the CEO of Bellhops Moving, Luke Marklin, called Carr personally to thank him for his dedication. However, that’s not all he wanted to say. Markin also wanted to meet the young man in person. So, the two agreed to meet the following Monday at a local coffee shop. As you might have guessed, Carr needed to walk to get there – it took him 20 minutes.
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Of course, the whole time, Carr never knew that Marklin had something incredible waiting for the young man. Quite the surprise waited for him at the coffee shop!
The Greatest Gift Ever
When Carr arrived at the coffee shop, he couldn’t help but notice Marklin’s brand-new Ford Escape. The car was big and useful, and the young man daydreamed of the day that he would own a car like that. It turned out, that day would come sooner than Carr ever expected. After they finished their coffee, Marklin told him the big news: he was giving Carr the brand-new vehicle.
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“I am honestly blown away by him,” Marklin said of Carr. “Everything he did that day is exactly who we are — heart and grit. So far, he’s batting 1,000.” As the CEO handed Carr the keys, the young man simply could not believe it…
An Incredible Day
When Marklin handed Carr the keys to the Ford Escape, the young man could only say one thing: “Seriously?” After all, Carr simply felt grateful for the opportunity to earn a better-paying job than working in the fast-food industry. “It was unbelievable,” Carr said. “I felt like it was a dream, like I’d wake up sooner or later. It was an unbelievable experience…I didn’t think all of that would come from me walking; I was just trying to get to a job.”
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His dedication certainly paid off! Now Carr had a brand-new Ford Escape in addition to the money from the GoFundMe. But the young man is never one to rest on his laurels. Instead, he used his newfound celebrity to inspire change in the world!
One Good Deed Inspires Many
Soon enough, Carr’s story was being shared all around the world. But the young man doesn’t want fortune or fame. Instead, he wanted people to learn something from his story. “I want people to know this — no matter what the challenge is, you can break through the challenge. Nothing is impossible unless you make it impossible,” he added. “You can do anything you set your mind to. I’ve got God by my side. I’m really emotional right now trying to hold back the tears.”
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Soon enough, massive celebrities started hearing and sharing Carr’s story. Some even invited the young man on to their nationally broadcasted talk shows!
Steve Harvey Show
When Steve Harvey, author and host of shows like Family Feud and his self-titled talk show, heard the story of Carr, he knew that he needed to book him on The Steve Harvey Show. Just a few weeks later, the young man appeared on the show and had a long conversation with the host about kindness, dedication, determination, and more!
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As Harvey said, “This young man inspired multiple acts of kindness and reminds us there is a lot of good in the world.” That’s certainly true! After appearing on The Steve Harvey Show, Carr started to gain even more national attention. Now, he’s using that celebrity to show everyone else the way…
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