ROSWELL, Ga. — A UPS delivery driver who left a kind message for a family welcoming a newborn over the holiday season saw his gesture returned tenfold by strangers after his words went viral on social media, WSB-TV reported.
Jessica Kitchel shared the 26-second clip from her Google Nest camera to Instagram on Dec. 3.
“If this is the ‘It’s a Boy’ house … I hope all is going well with your newborn,” the UPS delivery driver said in the video. “I had a child at around the same time you guys did, and I just hope everything is going good. God bless and happy holidays.”
In the post, Kitchel said the message helped to remind her that “there are still great people working hard every day for us.”
“I really wish I knew his name but I hope he comes back and if he does there will be diapers waiting for him,” she wrote.
She told The Washington Post that the driver left the message while she was feeling isolated at home and emotional after giving birth Nov. 14 to a baby boy.
“I was just so blown away by the fact … that he took the time to stop and do it, and more so that he was so observant that he remembered this was the ‘It’s a Boy’ house with the stork,” Kitchel told the newspaper.
Within days, a UPS representative was able to get Kitchel connected with the driver: 24-year-old Dallen Harrell, the Post reported. Harrell, who was a temporary driver for UPS over the holiday season, told the newspaper that he and his fiance welcomed their son on Sept. 16 and that when he left the message for Kitchel and her family on Dec. 3, “I just went from my heart.”
Kitchel and Harrell talked on the phone, and she left a package for him with a thank-you note, diapers, wipes and a plush giraffe, the Post reported.
She posted links to his registry online, asking for people to “help me give this incredible angel a Christmas him and his family won’t forget.”
Harrell told the Post that since then, his family has been getting as many as 15 packages every day.
“They have just been coming in abundance – mostly from strangers,” he said.
The families have since kept in touch and made plans to introduce their children to each other after the holidays, WSB reported. Harrell has also since been offered and accepted a full-time job as a UPS delivery driver, according to the Post.
“I can’t believe it all unfolded this way,” he told the newspaper. “When I left the comment at the doorbell, I didn’t even expect to hear from them, and so many blessings have followed behind.”