Viral Facebook post shows how a simple act of El Paso kindness can go a long way

EL PASO, Texas -- During these challenging times Mara Huerta, an El Paso single mom of two, tries to show her young boys that despite what’s happening all around us there is still good in the world. Huerta herself was reminded of that this past weekend.

"The whole time that I was in there I was thinking about him. For some reason he grabbed my attention so much more that day,” said Huerta.

While grocery shopping with her sister and grandmother, Huerta encountered an 80-year-old man who didn't skip a beat when it came to making sure customers felt welcomed as they stepped out of their cars.

"He’s always there as soon as you get out of your car. As soon as you show up and you park he already knows you’re gonna be showing up and you need a cart. He starts wiping a cart down and he takes it to you. He then offers to sanitize your hands,” explained Huerta who said that this chance encounter brought up memories of her late grandfather, “I see his hard work and I see his determination and how much he focuses and takes pride in what he does and it always reminds me of my grandpa."

Both are hard working men who didn’t need to work but always chose to continue working because it made them happy.

"So that just broke my heart and I left and I said we have to do something more. Whatever it is to bring awareness to this mans hard work,” said Huerta.

She then decided to post about her positive encounter with this store employee on Facebook and within hours the post went viral.

“I didn’t think that it really was gonna be this much of a hit but within two hours we had like 400 shares and I was like oh my gosh this is crazy,” said Huerta.

She then decided to create a GoFundMe page for the store employee, not because she felt he needed help financially, but because she wanted to show him that his hard work and kindness was making a difference to those he crossed paths with.

"In a way it really has restored my faith in humanity because people are just reacting to this so quickly and the amount of comments that I’m getting and people sharing their stories of their encounters with him," said Huerta, "It’s definitely wonderful to be able to share these kind of stories and kinda spread the love and the unity within the people of El Paso."

As of Monday evening, the Facebook post has been liked over 3,000 times and shared over 2,000 times.

Huerta has received mostly positive feedback from her post, but the viral post has also brought negative comments as well.

The intentions of the Facebook post were not meant to invade the privacy of the store employee. Huerta's intentions were to bring light to those in our community who manage to continue bringing positivity through these difficult times.

ABC-7 went to speak to the grocery store employee to ask how he felt about all this attention. Although he did not want to be identified, he was just glad that the job he enjoys doing every day is making an impact in others lives.

Huerta hopes to deliver the money she has raises from the GoFundMe account to the store employee sometime this week.