--- title: Waffle House: 5-Year-Old's Act of Kindness Brought Customers to Tears description: 5-year-old stuns Waffle House crowd after helping homeless customer canonical: https://time.com/3883532/five-year-old-homeless-customer-waffle-house/ author: David Stout article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-05-19T05:06:06.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:48:28.192Z og:title: This 5-Year-Old's Random Act of Kindness Brought Waffle House Customers to Tears og:description: Dickens couldn’t have scripted it better og:url: https://time.com/3883532/five-year-old-homeless-customer-waffle-house/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This 5-Year-Old's Random Act of Kindness Brought Waffle House Customers to Tears twitter:description: Dickens couldn’t have scripted it better twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # This 5-Year-Old's Random Act of Kindness Brought Waffle House Customers to Tears ## Video: Our food. Your questions. What are McDonald’s fries made of? [Watch (HLS stream): Our food. Your questions. What are McDonald’s fries made of?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/nGOOAY0j.m3u8) (5:05)  _Published 2015-01-20. Our food. Your questions. What are McDonald’s fries made of?_ by [David Stout](https://time.com/author/david-stout/) ## David Stout May 19, 2015 5:06 AM UTC by [David Stout](https://time.com/author/david-stout/) ## David Stout May 19, 2015 5:06 AM UTC Kids often say the darnedest things, but other times they [act](http://www.wsfa.com/story/29086720/5-year-olds-touching-gesture-feeds-homeless-man-at-waffle-house) in the most humane fashion. At a Waffle House in Prattville, Ala., 5-year-old Josiah Duncan shocked fellow customers after he asked his mother to help a destitute man who walked into the eatery and was being ignored. As the visibly impoverished customer waited, Duncan begged his mother to buy the man a meal after learning that he was likely homeless. “He came in and sat down, and nobody really waited on him,” Ava Faulk, the boy’s mother, told local news outlet WSFA. “So Josiah jumped up and asked him if he needed a menu because you can’t order without one.” After ordering a burger topped with bacon, the child insisted on saying a prayer before breaking bread with the homeless patron, eliciting tears from fellow customers. “Watching my son touch the 11 people in that Waffle House tonight will be forever one of the greatest accomplishments as a parent I’ll ever get to witness,” said Faulk. \[[_WSFA_](http://www.waff.com/story/29086720/5-year-olds-touching-gesture-feeds-homeless-man-at-waffle-house)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3883532/five-year-old-homeless-customer-waffle-house/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3883532/five-year-old-homeless-customer-waffle-house/"},"headline":"This 5-Year-Old's Random Act of Kindness Brought Waffle House Customers to Tears","datePublished":"2015-05-19T05:06:06.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:48:28.192Z","description":"Dickens couldn’t have scripted it better","url":"https://time.com/3883532/five-year-old-homeless-customer-waffle-house/","keywords":["Newsfeed","viral","alabama","homeless"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"David Stout","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/david-stout/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3883532/five-year-old-homeless-customer-waffle-house/","name":"This 5-Year-Old's Random Act of Kindness Brought Waffle House Customers to Tears"}}]},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"VideoObject","name":"Our food. 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