When This Pizza Delivery Driver Looked Inside A Customer’s Trailer, She Knew She Had To Act Fast

Need To Act Quickly

Pizza delivery women, Angela Nguyen and Sarah Hughes, had a regular customer named Lee Haase who called in for his meal order at least once a week. One fateful delivery would prove to change Lee’s life. When the women took a closer look inside the customer’s trailer, they knew that they had to act fast.

Devastating Loss

A resident of Ham Lake, Minnesota, Angela first began delivering pizza for Domino’s Pizza back in 2013. Before then, she had worked as one of Minnesota’s Visiting Nurses. But Angela’s life would change forever everything following a devastating personal loss.

Too Difficult

“I did housekeeping for people with AIDS and HIV,” Angela told The Atlantic in October 2016. “Then they closed my department. They offered me another position with [a] hospice, but I had a daughter that had died while I was working for Minnesota Visiting Nurses, and it was just too difficult for me to think of going to work with other people that were dying. So I left.”

Part-Time Work

Months later, Angela sought out a part-time job, whilst still setting aside time to care for her grandchildren. So, with her beloved grandkids in mind, she showed an interest in working for the same company as her oldest daughter, Sarah, in the hope that she could earn money and do her part for the family.

Domino’s

“I would help [Sarah] out quite a bit, watching her children,” Angela recalled to The Atlantic. “I got a job at Domino’s and worked the opposite hours of her. It was flexible enough for me to watch her kids while she worked, and then for her to have her children when I went to work.”

One Customer In Particular

As she settled in to her new role as a delivery woman, Angela soon became very familiar with one customer. His name was Lee, he lived on the fringes of Anoka County, Minnesota. “He likes to order every Saturday,” she told USA Today in December 2015. “About 10:15 a.m. you are going to get an order from Lee.”

Tragic Accident

But in late 2015, everything would change. Unsuspecting Lee would become the victim of an unimaginable chain of terrible events.

Badly Damaged

The elderly customer’s home was badly damaged following a violent local storm. The house was uninhabitable. Soon after the incident, Lee’s son tragically passed away in a snowmobile accident. Sill in mourning, Lee moved into a small trailer just outside his home.

Unfortunate Circumstances

Unfortunately, the trailer had no access to electricity, plumbing or heat. Lee was left in a terribly vulnerable position just ahead of the winter months. When Sarah noticed his tragic living situation, she soon informed her mom. Unsurprisingly, Angela decided she had to do something.

Have To Do Something

“I thought, ‘We got to do something,’” Angela told USA Today. “We got to do something. We can’t let a human being live like this.” Lee was desperate and alone. What could she do to ease his circumstances?

Going A Little Further

In an act of true compassion, Angela bought a heater for Lee’s trailer to keep him warm during the coming winter season. But she that wouldn’t be enough. She decided she had to do more.

Doing What She Could

Angela knew Lee needed as much help as he could possibly get. “[The pizzas are] what [Lee] would live on on the weekends, because he was elderly and couldn’t get Meals on Wheels,” Angela told The Atlantic.

Ray Of Sunshine

“I would look forward to delivering to him and just being a little ray of sunshine to him every Saturday morning, saying, ‘How are you doing, Lee?’ Sometimes, I would stop at the store and grab him a hot cup of coffee and a doughnut before I’d go there with his pizza.”

Work Didn’t Stop There

Angela’s contribution didn’t stop there, as she continued to look for more ways to help Lee’s situation. “There’s no way somebody can live like that and be fine,” she said in a YouTube video produced by Humankind, a channel created by USA Today, in December 2015. “So you just step in, and you do what you got to do.”

Setting Up Support

Angela soon set up a GoFundMe page for Lee, leading to countless contributions for the needy elderly gentleman from across the world. “We got donations from as far as Australia,” the delivery driver told USA Today. After just two months, the page had raised more than $32,000, which sparked the next phase of Angela’s ambitious plan to aid Lee.

New Home

Using the funds she had raised, Angela bought her elderly customer a brand new home, while the local community donated all the furnishings. The Humankind YouTube video, titled “Pizza delivery driver delivers new home to homeless man,” captured the moment when Lee finally saw the results of their incredibly generous work. Unsurprisingly, the old man was touched beyond words.

A Christmas To Remember

In the video, Lee is greeted by a number of local volunteers as he walks through his new home’s front door. Sarah gives him a warm hug as he struggles to come to terms with the reality of the life-changing gift, with the interior of the house now covered in Christmas decorations. “You remember when this started, and I promised you we were going to help you?” she tearfully tells Lee as they embrace.

So Grateful

“It’s wonderful,” Lee later tells the camera. “I’m so grateful for [the] people doing this.” After that, Angela gives him a tour of his new house, being sure to note that his new fridge is fully-stocked with weeks’ worth of food. Incredibly, his new bedroom is almost the same size as his old trailer. A message above his bed reads, “Joy, hope, love, peace, believe.”

Benefit For All

The video closes with Lee and his new friends singing Christmas carols, Angela offers one last heartwarming message to the camera, saying, “Every single one of us enjoyed doing this,” she tells the camera crew. “This ain’t all for Lee. We all benefited.”

Roof Over His Head

While Lee now has a proper roof over his head for the winter, Angela has continued to do good deeds for her other Domino’s regulars. “Another customer’s daughter just had surgery for Crohn’s disease and was very, very ill and the mother was out of work,” she told The Atlantic.

Carrying On The Good Deeds

“I started a GoFundMe for her, and we are getting enough donations that her mother doesn’t have to worry about going back to work right now,” Angela continued. “She can just stay home and take care of her daughter.” As for Lee, life has truly changed for the grateful man.

No More Delivery

“[Lee] really stood out for quite some time and doesn’t order for delivery anymore because he’s got a stove and a refrigerator and a microwave,” Angela said of her former customer. “Yeah, he stood out for a very long time.”

A New Place To Call Home

While delivery drivers can become very familiar with certain customers, few will be able to emulate the generosity and kindness of Angela Nguyen. Alongside her daughter Sarah, she delivered something far greater than a pizza to Lee Haase in December 2015. She gave him a new place to call home.