“Hello, Mrs. Cummings,” Mark said upon opening the front door.

“Hey, Mark! This is my daughter, Anastacia. Here’s your money. Again, thank you so much for everything,” Mary told him with a kind smile.

“Thank you. You didn’t have to hurry,” the boy replied and looked behind him for a second. “Listen, I would invite you in, but I’m not supposed to have anyone over. My grandma would be mad.”

“Oh, where is she? Maybe, we can come later to meet her. Does she like pecan pie? Because we’re going to the bakery right now,” Anastacia added happily.

“Well, she’s actually at the hospital and won’t get out for a while,” Mark explained with a frown. Mary and Anastacia wanted to know more, so he continued. “She needs a huge surgery, and I started a GoFundMe, but I’ve been trying to promote it. It’s not that popular. For now, the hospital has understood, and they are keeping her in observation while I raise the money.”

“Oh, sweetie. You shouldn’t have to do that on your own,” Anastacia said, concerned.

“We don’t have anyone else. It’s only us,” Mark shrugged. Mary and Anastacia looked at each other and came to a wordless decision.

“Give me the link to the GoFundMe, and your grandmother’s name. Also, come with us to the bakery. We’ll go visit her and see if the doctor lets her eat some pie,” Mary offered, although it was more of a demand.

“Are you sure? You don’t have to.”

“We have to,” Anastacia insisted, and Mark went with them.

After buying some pies, they went to the hospital to meet Mark’s grandmother, Mrs. Julie Strada. They talked to her for a while, and Mark decided to stay with her that night, so Mary and Anastacia left.

When they got home, Anastacia shared the GoFundMe link with anyone she could think of, and she also donated a few hundred dollars. But Mary felt so hopeless. “They need so much money for this surgery. I don’t know if sharing the link is enough,” she breathed sadly.

“Let’s think,” Anastacia said, looking at her computer. “How about we share the story of the boy? I mean how he helped you, although they need the money so much. I mean, he couldn’t know you were going to pay it back. Maybe it could go viral? Let’s try Reddit.”

“That’s a one-in-a-million thing, Anastacia,” Mary replied skeptically.

“We’ll see,” the younger woman said with a smile and started writing everything that happened on Reddit. She posted it on several subreddits and her Twitter.

At first, there were only a few commenters, but thousands of people had read the story and donated to the cause after a few days. They still needed a lot more donations to reach the goal of $230,000, which was the cost of Mrs. Strada’s entire treatment.

But surprisingly, a famous new outlet picked up the story, shared it, and even interviewed Mary and Mark for their article. The GoFundMe project reached way beyond their goal, and they were ecstatic. Mark couldn’t believe it. He had only paid around $20 for what Mrs. Cummings needed at the store, and she somehow found a way to pay it back and more.