upworthy

charity

Videos

Shaquille O'Neal quietly paid for a random guy's engagement ring while standing in line

"I'm just trying to make people smile... That's all."

NBA on TNT/Twitter

An unsuspecting guy at a shopping mall Zales got the surprise of his life back in 2021 while trying to pay off part of his engagement ring.

As the young man talked with the clerk at the jewelry store counter about how much he still owed for his ring and when he'd be able to pay it off, an extraordinarily large hand handed the clerk a credit card. Shaquille O'Neal, the 7' 1'' basketball legend known colloquially as "Shaq," overheard their conversation and decided to take care of the bill himself. No big announcement. No fanfare. He just handed over his credit card, shook the stunned customer's hand and patted him on the back, and that was that.

Someone caught the moment on video and shared it, which prompted Shaq's co-hosts on NBA on TNT to ask him about it the next day.

One of the first questions was, "You went to the mall, and went to Zales?!?" Not exactly where one would expect a person with a $400 million net worth to be hanging out on a Monday, but Shaq pointed out that he has a jewelry line at Zales. He went in to get some hoop earrings. Alrighty.

The young man at the checkout counter was so shy, Shaq said, and when he heard him talking about paying for his engagement ring, Shaq asked him how much it was and offered to pay for it.

At first, the guy refused, but Shaq insisted. And apparently, he does these random acts of generosity all the time.

He said he was recently in a furniture store (seriously, do multi-millionaires not shop online?) and saw a mom with an autistic daughter buying furniture. He just took care of their bill, just because.

"I'm into making people happy," he said. "I didn't mean for that to get out because I don't do it for that...I'm just trying to make people smile, that's all."

Shaq's generosity is well-documented, despite his preference to keep much of it under wraps. In a 2015 interview with Graham Bessinger, he explained how his father's charity—despite their family not having a lot of money—influenced him.

After giving the family's bag of hamburgers to a homeless veteran, his father got into the family car and told him, "If you ever make it big time, make sure you help those in need."

Shaq remembered those words and engages in charity in a range of ways, "because of what a man who made $30,000 a year taught me," he said. "And a woman who was a secretary who probably made $20,000 a year—they taught me that."

His giving comes "from the heart," he said. He's not looking for attention or accolades—he just wants to make people happy.

"I'm doing this because this is what I was taught," he said. "I'm doing it because to walk in there and see a family, put a smile on their face for a day, that's just awesome to me."

Shaq on helping others when no one is lookingwww.youtube.com

"That's my thing. I just want to make you smile," he said.

Shaq once asked a restaurant server how much of a tip she wanted, and when she quipped "$4,000," he gave it to her. When a 12-year-old was paralyzed by a stray bullet in a shooting, Shaq donated a whole house to his family. A fan who saw Shaq in a Best Buy offered condolences to the star for the untimely death of Shaq's friend and former teammate Kobe Bryant, as well as Shaq's sister Ayesha, who had recently passed away from cancer. He was treated to a new laptop—the best one in the store.

Many of us like to daydream about what we'd do if we had more money than we know what to do with. And many of us like to picture ourselves being generous with our wealth, helping out random folks who could use some help.

Charitable giving looks like a lot of different things, from funding organizations to distributing money through a foundation to handing over a bag of burgers to someone who's hungry. It's just delightful to see wealthy people who not only support official charitable organizations with money and time (Shaq serves as a national spokesperson for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and is a member of the national Board of Directors for Communities in Schools in addition to raising and donating millions of dollars to various causes) but who also just help out random people everywhere they go.

Kudos to Shaq's parents for teaching him so well, and kudos to him for taking their lessons to heart.


This article originally appeared four years ago.

From Your Site Articles
kindness
Badge
P&G
Proctor and Gamble
Joy

Now's your chance to help someone doing good in your community win $1000 towards the charity of their choice

Upworthy and P&G are back with the #ActsOfGood Awards.

Images provided by P&G

Three winners will be selected to receive $1000 donated to the charity of their choice.

True

Doing good is its own reward, but sometimes recognizing these acts of kindness helps bring even more good into the world. That’s why we’re excited to partner with P&G again on the #ActsOfGood Awards.

The #ActsOfGood Awards recognize individuals who actively support their communities. It could be a rockstar volunteer, an amazing community leader, or someone who shows up for others in special ways.

Do you know someone in your community doing #ActsOfGood? Nominate them between April 24th-June 3rdhere.Three winners will receive $1,000 dedicated to the charity of their choice, plus their story will be highlighted on Upworthy’s social channels. And yes, it’s totally fine to nominate yourself!

We want to see the good work you’re doing and most of all, we want to help you make a difference.

While every good deed is meaningful, winners will be selected based on how well they reflect Upworthy and P&G’s commitment to do #ActsOfGood to help communities grow.

That means be on the lookout for individuals who:

Strengthen their community

Make a tangible and unique impact

Go above and beyond day-to-day work

The #ActsOfGood Awards are just one part of P&G’s larger mission to help communities around the world to grow. For generations, P&G has been a force for growth—making everyday products that people love and trust—while also being a force for good by giving back to the communities where we live, work, and serve consumers. This includes serving over 90,000 people affected by emergencies and disasters through the Tide Loads of Hope mobile laundry program and helping some of the millions of girls who miss school due to a lack of access to period products through the Always #EndPeriodPoverty initiative.

Visit upworthy.com/actsofgood and fill out the nomination form for a chance for you or someone you know to win. It takes less than ten minutes to help someone make an even bigger impact.

From Your Site Articles
best of humanity
Joy

Bullied 'Rabbit kid' gets beautiful smile after kind strangers donate $100,000 to help

His family couldn't afford to fix his teeth.

via Andrea Piacquadio/Pexels

A dentist improves someone's smile.

A touching story out of New Zealand shows a community's power to fight back against bullying and uplift the spirits of a young boy who badly needed medical attention.

It all began in 2011 when 12-year-old Evan Hill of Christchurch appeared on “Campbell Live,” a local current affairs show. Hill had severely buck teeth, and it made him the target of relentless bullying. Because of his appearance, the kids at his school called him “Rabbit kid.”

"They make me look funny and silly," Evan said about his teeth. "(The kids at school) call me a bunny rabbit and I'm not."

To add to the problem, Hill’s family was going through some very hard times after a devastating earthquake that struck New Zealand earlier that year. One hundred eighty-five people died in the quake and thousands of homes were destroyed.

"Since the earthquakes, I've had a death in the family, my mum passed away and my dad's house was virtually in the red zone. He found it hard to cope with that and had a stroke, and now he's in a rest home,” Evan’s father, Stephen Hill, revealed on the show.

The family didn’t have the $12,000 needed to pay for Evan’s dental work or a car to drive him to any appointments. Dental care is free in New Zealand to people under 18. However, Evan’s case was too severe to qualify.

If Evan didn’t get his teeth fixed, the bullies wouldn’t be his only problem. According to Medical News Today, buck teeth can lead to difficulty with chewing or eating, problems speaking, teeth grinding, mouth breathing, jaw problems, tooth decay and headaches due to pressures in the jaw joint.

The family’s neighbor, Phil Cooper, appealed to the people watching the show to help the family. "A lot of us judge others by their covers and who they look like on the outside, but actually he's a really nice kid,” Cooper said.

Boy bullied for buck teeth gets new smile after donations pour in | Newshub

After Evan’s story aired, “Campbell Live” was inundated with donations from its viewers and thousands of contributions added up to over $100,000 for the family. The money was used for Evan’s dental work and for the family to get a car. The family placed the rest of the money in a trust to pay for other children with similar dental problems.

Five years after appearing on television and sharing his story, orthodontist Ronald Sluiter took Evan’s braces off, revealing a beautiful smile. Over the course of the procedure, Evan’s teeth had to be moved 15 millimeters (⅔ of an inch) to be in a healthy and aesthetically appealing position.

“It’s about time,” Evan’s mother, Barbara Erickson, told Newshub. “I don’t know where we would have been today without the generosity we had. We had been looking to mortgage the house to pay for them.”

When asked how he looked after having his braces removed, Evan said: “Good.” Now, Even is looking forward to a career as a train driver.

From Your Site Articles
kindness
Joy

Fred Meyer store got $50,000 for winning Powerball ticket and gave it all to a local food bank

The money will provide approximately 66,000 meals to the community.

Photo by Joel Muniz on Unsplash, City of Auburn/Facebook

A Fred Meyer store in Washington State passed its lottery bonus on to the Auburn Food Bank.

When someone wins a Powerball lottery jackpot, they aren't the only ones who get a cash prize. The store that sells the winning ticket also receives a cash bonus for selling the winning ticket. The amount of the reward varies depending on the state and the total amount of the lottery, but it can end up being a significant chunk of change.

On February 6, a Fred Meyer store in Auburn, Washington, sold the winning ticket for the $754.6 million Powerball jackpot—the fifth largest Powerball amount ever seen. As a bonus for selling the ticket, the Fred Meyer store received a check for $50,000.

But instead of pocketing the cash, the Kroger-owned store turned around and gave it to the Auburn Food Bank.


The donation was made in honor of the company's Zero Hunger | Zero Waste program, which includes a goal to donate 3 billion meals to local communities by 2025. According to the City of Auburn, that $50,000 will provide approximately 66,000 meals in the area.

Naturally, the food bank was grateful to the Fred Meyer store for the unexpected gift.

“Hunger and food insecurity are critical issues across the state and partnerships like this one with Fred Meyer and QFC aim to shrink the numbers of people facing food insecurity,” Debbie Christian, executive director of the Auburn Food Bank, told KING5 News.

Despite passing along the entirety of the lottery reward, employees of the Fred Meyer store will still benefit from the sale of the winning ticket, thanks to their generous company headquarters.

“It’s always good to give back and today everyone wins,” Fred Meyer President Todd Kammeyer said in a statement. “In addition to this donation, Fred Meyer is giving $10,000 to the store for our associates to celebrate."

As for the winner of the $754.6 million jackpot? Well, she has a fun story, too.

Becky Bell is a supply chain analyst for The Boeing Company, which just delivered its last 747 jumbo jet at the end of January. Bell has worked for the aircraft giant for 36 years and was planning to retire in June. When she saw that the Powerball estimate was $747 million while on a trip to the store with her daughter on February 5, she took it as a sign.

“That’s when it hit me…I had to buy one more ticket,” said Bell, according to a Washington Lottery press release.

That second ticket she bought was the sole winner of the jackpot, which ended up being over $7 million more than the estimated $747 million. But at first, she didn't know. When she scanned her ticket and it said it was a winner, all she knew was that she had won at least $600, "which was pretty exciting," she said. She'd never won more than $20 in her life.

Then she checked the numbers and realized she had all of them—the whole jackpot. She had to call her daughters, sisters and mom to double, triple and quadruple-check that she had the right numbers.

“The funny thing was my mom misheard me when I told her how much I won,” said Bell, who said she would help take care of her family members. “She said ‘Seven million…that’s great, honey. Everyone can have a million.’ Then I had to say, ‘No, mom, seven HUNDRED million dollars. Pretty soon, everyone was crying.”

After choosing to receive her winnings in one lump sum instead of gradual payments over 29 years, Bell will take home almost $309.5 million. She has moved her retirement date up to the end of March, staying on long enough to finish training her replacement at Boeing.

So much winning all around.

From Your Site Articles
food bank donation
Trending Stories