Homeless Man Gives His Coat to Warm up Lost Girl in Snow, Gets Shelter from Her Dad for Life – Story of the Day

A homeless older man comes to the rescue of a little girl lost in a snowstorm, and his compassion and quick thinking in saving her transform his life magically.

Life had always been unfair to Toby. When he thought he had had enough, fate struck him with another painful blow. Toby lost his home and wife to a catastrophic flood, and none of his relatives stepped forward to help him. As a result, the 74-year-old became homeless and took refuge in bus stations and parking lots.

Toby did not want to live in a shelter for homeless people and chose to wander the streets, living with what fate gave him every day. He slept under a bridge alongside an interstate highway most of the time. He called it his ‘home,’ and it was all he had for the last five years.

Sometimes, the bridge would leak during heavy rains, forcing Toby to move somewhere safe for a night’s rest. He kept migrating from one side of the street to another before finally settling down in his makeshift tarp tent under another bridge not far from an elementary school…

One afternoon, Toby decided to go down to the square near the school to take a look at the dumpster. Staff from nearby hotels often left leftovers in sealed bags for the homeless, an act of kindness that often saved folks like Toby from starvation.

The leftovers were already taken that day, perhaps by other homeless people. Toby sighed disappointedly and looked at the one last dumpster left to check outside the school gate. As he approached it, the kids playing on the ground behind the gate started screaming.

“Boogeyman! He’s coming to get us! Run… Run…”

Years of homelessness and street-dwelling had made Toby skinny and menacing. His unkempt grey beard and ragged clothes, paired with a long, smelly overcoat, frightened the kids.

Whenever the children misbehaved or threw tantrums, their parents would scare them, saying: “If you don’t obey, that boogeyman will take you!” pointing to a helpless Toby who would be rummaging through the trashcans for leftovers. Like the other kids, little Heidi was also scared of Toby.

The six-year-old girl recently moved to the city after her father got transferred to a logistics company. Heidi had everything that could make her childhood one of a kind. But nothing made her happy, not even her little pink bedroom stuffed with toys and dolls. It was because Heidi missed her old school friends, and none of the kids in her new school were kind or welcoming.

“Nobody is talking to me, mommy,” she cried to her mother one day before leaving for school. “They are making fun of me. They call me ‘shorty with pigtails,’ and nobody eats with me. They run away when they see me. I don’t want to go to school, mommy. Please, can I stay at home?”

Her mother, Diana, was upset but knew Heidi would soon make a bunch of friends. “Sweetie, it’s going to be alright....