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Dollars For Donuts: Teen Offers To Work For Food, Gets Flooded With Support

By Trisha Faulkner
Published on: 05:52 PST, Jun 26, 2016

The phrase “dollars for donuts” is trending across the country after a chance encounter between two residents of Memphis, Tennessee leads to a “hungry and broke” teenager getting flooded with the support of people all around the United States.

Dollars for donuts is a phrase that refers to what was intended to be a regular trip to the grocery store for Matt White. This 30-year-old from West Memphis, Tennessee, was encountered by a 16-year-old boy named Chauncy Jones Black while he was shopping for groceries. According to Epoch Times, the 16-year-old asked White if he could carry his groceries for him in exchange for a pack of glazed donuts – hence the trending phrase dollars for donuts.

While Matt White claims his heart was screaming “yes” that he had to help this boy, he approached the hungry teenager wanting donuts in exchange for work in a less dramatic way. “Yeah dude, we’ll get you some donuts,” White claims to have said to him in a casual and chuckling tone.

According to White, dollars for donuts’ teen looked “like he had been turned down 100 times. He looked ashamed, hungry and broken.” Despite dollars for donuts being the phrase that was trending, the teenager was not going around asking people for money, but for food. In this case, donuts.

“You can tell he didn’t have anything and he was asking to work to get some food it just broke my heart,” Matt said as he revealed his first thoughts about meeting Chauncy, the boy who inspired the phrase dollars for donuts.

Local Memphis reports Chauncy, the dollars for donuts teen, is a straight A student who is constantly looking for extra work to make money to help his mother buy food and pay the rent.

Instead of just donuts, Matt White made the decision to use his dollars to buy some groceries for Chauncy and his family instead.

“We got cereal and chips and frozen veggies, pizzas, Cheetos, melons and pasta, peanut butter, milk, soap, tooth brushes, just a little bit of everything,” White wrote in his post on Facebook.

“… he told me how he makes straight A’s in school and is trying to get a job to help his mom pay rent. This kid was amazing. Chauncy kept calling himself poor, but he told me that one day he was gonna be wealthy and own his own businesses so that he could help other people in his neighborhood and buy them groceries like me. I was in awe.”

https://www.facebook.com/matt.white.77964201/posts/10102099373675510

After White arrived at Chauncy’s home to help bring the groceries in, he discovered both the dollars for donuts’ teenager and his mother were sleeping on the floor and their refrigerator had nothing in it. It was then that White decided he needed to take his dollars for donuts’ experience to social media.

It didn’t take long for people to respond to White’s social media post. They were moved by the kindness he had shown to the dollars for donuts’ teenager. Many said they wanted to help Chauncy and his mom too.

“I want to help. You are truly amazing as is this young man,” one Facebook commenter wrote.

“I work at a place where we have a thrift store I need his address if possible,” a second commenter replied to the post.

Below, White, even helped the boy who inspired dollars for donuts make a video asking for clothing as well as a push lawnmower. The push lawnmower would make it possible for the teenager to cut lawns to make some sort of income for his mother and himself.

“I didn’t think it could happen, but it did. I’m 30 years old and I have a new hero,” Matt White wrote on the Go Fund Me page he set up to help raise money for the boy who inspired dollars for donuts.

As of June 26, what started out as a Go Fund Me page to raise a couple hundred dollars to buy the dollars for donuts’ teenager a lawn mower, some clothing, and maybe a bed has exploded. To date, the Go Fund Me page has raised nearly $250,000. Matt has updated the page to say how great it would be if Chauncy and his mother can go from struggling to pay rent to being homeowners. What has amounted to nearly $250,000 has been raised by 10,418 people in 12 days.

Who knew dollars for donuts could turn into hundreds of thousands of dollars for so much more than just donuts?

[Images via Shutterstock]

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