James Robertson would zealously commute about 21 miles a day on foot from his home in Detroit to his workplace in Rochester Hills everyday five days a week. Since the public transport didn’t cover the full distance, he would walk 8 miles to and 13 miles back home daily. This was his routine for the past 10 years after his car stopped working and bus services were curtailed. All that changed when Bill Laitner took up his story on Sunday’s Detroit Free Press; his tale inspired thousands to donate funds to buy him a car, pay his insurance and provide professional help in managing the donations.
Evan Leedy, a 19-year-old student at Wayne State University, read the story and started a GoFundMe page with the goal of raising $5,000. Donations from across the Unites States trickled in and as of Wednesday crossed the $250K mark.
Some donors have offered to drive him for free and others have offered to buy or donate him cars. Leedy has received a call from the corporate offices of Honda offering to donate a car, and a local Chevrolet dealership, Rodgers Chevrolet, has also already offered to give Robertson a car. “We are in a position that we can help and we just want to pay it forward,” Angela Osborne, a customer service specialist at Rodgers, told ABC News. “His story really struck home”.
Blake Pollock, vice president of wealth management at UBS, started seeing Robertson walking on his daily commute a few years ago and offered Robertson close to 100 rides in the years since. Now he is leading the charge to make sure that Robertson benefits from the donations made in his name.
“We want to make sure that all of the wonderful contributions go to truly benefit James and not get wasted on other things or go to people who want to leech off of him. He deserves to feel good and he deserves to not walk 20 plus miles to work. We don’t want to change his life. We want to enhance his life,” Pollock said.
This is what Robertson had to say about a Federal program through Detroit’s bus system that might provide him pick up and drop: “I’d rather wish they spent that money on a 24-hour bus system, not on some little bus for me. This city needs buses going 24/7. You can tell the city council and mayor I said that”.
Sources:
Why is this important news? Most negroes are violent by nature. He’ll probably spend most of the cash on malt liquor, crack, and prostitutes.
You’re one hell of a racist son of a bitch
And you’re one conditioned White who never had to live with those animals. Love to know how many miles away from the ghetto you grew up in. You’re obviously a liberal fascist who would self-censor himself and others. Is it a statistical fact that most violent crime in prisons is black on white? Just axin.
Awww, poor Daren- racist trolljust got dumped by another girlfriend who he saw now happily dating a very nice guy who is Black…… awwww, don’t be bitter your whole cowardly life Daren.
Why is this important news? He’ll probably spend most of the cash on Malt liquor, crack, prostitutes and back alley dice games.
holy shit. Detroit still has a mayor and a city council?