This friendship began with a beautiful act. It’s so nice that people like this still exist.
Never underestimate the impact of random acts of kindness, despite what the outside world may tell you. They can not only make someone’s gloomy day better, but they can also create enduring bonds between total strangers. The individual in today’s tale gained notoriety for a related incident.
Paul Young, a native of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, was pleased and happy with his situation in life. He ran a delivery and moving company and just so happened to be assigned to Rycroft Green, a Swinnow sheltered housing complex.
Young had previously worked there, assisting other newcomers to settle in. But his visit on April 16, 2021, proved to be very different from his prior employment—something that had a profound impact on his head and heart.
A Lost Purse
On the last Friday of April, as Young had just finished his shift and was getting ready to depart, he noticed something laying on the ground that drew his eye. When he leaned down to have a better look, he was taken aback to see that it was actually a purse.
The inhabitant of Pudsey opened the purse in the hopes of seeing an identification card or something else that might assist him in connecting the dots and determining who the purse belonged to. Unfortunately, the purse had nothing but money inside of it. Young performed a second search for the bank card, but he was unsuccessful.
Social Media’s Power
Young was at a loss for what else to do but was adamant about giving the purse back to the person who was entitled to it, so he resorted to Facebook and made the decision to make use of the power of social media. He published a post on which he detailed his problem and asked for the assistance of others in locating the person who had misplaced their purse.
Young went on to say that since he was unable to locate a warden in Rycroft at the time, he felt that telling the tale on Facebook would be sufficient to solve the problem. His caption included the words “Just let me know what’s in the purse, and you can have it back,” which was part of the caption.
Young confessed that, despite the fact that he had written about it on social media, he had a strong hunch that the purse belonged to someone who lived in Rycroft Green. However, he stated that he wasn’t certain because the area was always filled with people, and it was also possible that it had been the property of a tourist. He added:
“At the end of the day, you don’t know if it’s the last of somebody’s money, or it’s all they have left.”
Finding the Owner
A total of 71 people commented on Young’s Facebook post, and it was shared more than 1,500 times. In the meantime, he kept his fingers crossed that somebody who could provide reliable information regarding the purse would come forward and get in touch with him. Fortunately, a member of the Rycroft staff noticed the post and informed Young that a female resident had just recently dropped her purse.
It made perfect sense that one of the residents of the sheltered accommodation, which was designed for persons aged 55 and older, had dropped their purse, and it was possible that they had difficulty to pick it up or continue their search for it at a later time.
The 37-year-old guy from West Yorkshire walked up with the purse and expressed his happiness at being able to return it to the homeowner after obtaining the address from the warden. He took a picture with the elderly lady to capture the precious moment, and she smiled broadly and breathed a sigh of relief as she held onto her purse.
It led to the formation of a fast friendship.
When Young thought back on the event, he remarked that he wouldn’t want it to happen to anyone and that he was glad he could help. He recalled that as he took out the lady’s purse, her face lit up with happiness, making it abundantly evident that it belonged to her. He also remembered that he gave it to her. Young added:
“She tried to give me a reward for giving it back but I wasn’t going to take it. I was just glad to see how happy she was.”
Young and the older woman became close friends as they conversed together for a while after the older woman commended Young for his good heart. In a following tweet, Young posted the endearing photograph that he had taken with the 93-year-old woman and stated that she was “over the moon” after being reunited with her purse.
