Viral: 7-Year-Old Uses Birthday Savings To Help Homeless On Thanksgiving
A seven-year-old boy from Houston recently caught media attention when he reportedly used his birthday money to help feed the homeless during Thanksgiving.
Local news outlet KHOU-11 reported that Dylan Virtudazo’s birthday party was earlier canceled back in August due to gathering restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic — he received cash gifts instead.
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“My grandma and everybody gave me money for my birthday, and I didn’t know what to use it on, and I just thought to use it for the homeless,” the 7-year old told KHOU-11.
The young Dylan reportedly came up with the idea when they were asked by their teachers about their Thanksgiving plans. Later on, his teachers also made a donation to help him reach his goal of passing 50 “blessing bags” to the homeless.
“Two weeks ago, when the teacher asked the kids what are you going to do for Thanksgiving, he said he wanted to use his birthday money to feed the homeless,” his father, Irwin Virtudazo, told the local outlet.
His mother, Nancy Virtudazo told Fox News that they drove to homeless shelters on Thanksgiving Day to distribute the blessing bags bought from Dylan’s money.
“He’s always been like that,” the older Virtudazo added.
According to reports, some recipients of the “blessing bags” — that contained face masks, hand sanitizer, bar soap, razors, water, lotion, and snacks — were physically disabled people that were very glad to receive the small tokens.
“I just wanted to help a lot of people,” the 7-year old said. “I just see homeless people on the street, it makes me sad because I wonder what happened.”
The bags that were handed out also reportedly bear a simple message: “You matter, God Bless!”
About 4,000 people in Houston are homeless at any given time, and 50% of them lost shelter because of various economic crises, according to data from the Coalition for the Homeless of Houston/Harris County — which also used data from the 2019 Homeless Count & Survey.
According to White House data, there were at least 552,830 people counted as homeless in the country — of which 35% were unsheltered, and 65% were sheltered. The overall homeless population on a single night represents 0.2% of the US population, or 17 people per 10,000 in the population.
