Louisville, Kentucky garbage man, Jake Bland, was just doing his job and making rounds in the neighborhood when he noticed something peculiar — one of the residents hadn’t put out any trash for the last few weeks.

He could have just ignored it but being the good samaritan he is, he decided to figure out what was going on instead. He knew 2+ weeks of no trash was a troubling sign.

Bland, AKA Hometown Hauling Company’s operations manager, asked dispatch to call the woman to figure out what was going on.

After making the call, it turned out that the woman who lived there was 90-years-old. She had no trash because, sadly, she had no food to eat.

Because of the coronavirus pandemic, the world has been hit hard. It is known that elderly people are much more susceptible to the virus, which makes it harder for them to go out in society and do regular things like go grocery shopping. For them, it is a huge life risk.

This woman was elderly, so she was too scared to leave her home to get groceries during the pandemic. She also did not have any friends or family that could get the groceries for her.

She had been living off of old food for weeks, so Hometown Hauling Company decided to step in and lend a hand.

“She just didn’t have nothing to eat,” Bernice Arthur told WDRB. “And that’s why she had no trash to put out there.”

“She has no family, nobody,” Arthur added. “I said, ‘You do have a family now.’”

So after that, the team created a list of essential food items, went out and got the groceries (which they paid for), and hand-delivered them to the elderly woman who was extremely happy. They call her Mrs. W.

“It was even in a nice neighborhood,” Bland said. “You never know what’s going on in your neighbor’s house.”

And Bland is right. If there is anything we can learn from this, it’s that you never know what is going on in someone’s home. This all happened in what is known to be a nice neighborhood. You might not expect that a resident there is struggling to eat, but anything is possible. That is why it is so crucial that you check in on your neighbors, especially during tough times like these.

Sadly, Mrs. W is not even the only elderly person who is struggling right now. The good news is that many older people do have friends and family to rely on. That isn’t the case for everyone though, and you can’t assume that.

“Had we not reached out to her — she wasn’t reaching out to anyone. It taught me, regardless, check on them. Put something on their porch. Let them know,” Arthur added.

And we couldn’t agree more!

We are so happy the garbage company was able to come through and show up for their neighborhood. True heroes!

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Source: Spotlight Stories / WDRB