‘This Changes My Life.’ Woman Raises $250,000 for Homeless Man Who Helped Her When She Ran Out of Gas

A New Jersey woman has raised more than a quarter of a million dollars for a homeless man who helped her when she ran out of gas on a highway last month.

Kate McClure, 27, was driving into Philadelphia in Oct. when she ran out of gas around 11pm on the Interstate 95. ” My heart was beating out of my chest” McClure wrote on her GoFundMe page.

A man she called “Johnny” came up to her car, told her to lock her doors, and spent his last $20 to buy her gas. “Johnny did not ask me for a dollar, and I couldn’t repay him at that moment because I didn’t have any cash” McClure, who works for the New Jersey Department of Transportation, writes.

McClure has been dropping by his spot on the Interstate to repay him for the gas, provide him with warm clothes, food and water since that act of kindness.

On Nov. 10, she and her boyfriend, Mark D’Amico, began a GoFundMe campaign, with a funding goal of $10 thousand, to help her rescuer find an apartment, a car and four to six months of expenses. “He is very interested in finding a job, and I believe that with a place to be able to clean up every night and get a good night’s rest, his life can get back to being normal” she writes.

Her story went viral after it ran in a local paper on Nov. 20. As of Friday, the fund was nearly at $300,000. According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, McClure has learned that her midnight saviour was Johnny Bobbitt Jr., 34, who was a former ammunition technician in the Marines.

“This changes my life right there,” Johnny said in a video posted to the GoFundMe page after $1,700 had been raised.