For 18-year-old Evoni Williams, helping customers is simply part of her job.
But earlier this month at the Waffle House in La Marque, Texas, a fellow customer caught Williams going above and beyond her job description. Williams saw an elderly man struggling with his food and began cutting up his ham with a knife a fork. The man Adrian Charpentier told local news, “I had no coordination, no feeling, strength in my hands.”
Customer Laura Wolf saw the exchange and posted the photo on Facebook. “I don’t know her name but I heard this elderly man tell her his hands don’t work too good. He was also on oxygen and struggling to breathe. Without hesitation, she took his plate and began cutting up his ham. This may seem small but to him, I’m sure it was huge.”
Williams had no clue the photo was posted until several hours later. “When I saw it, it’s just something I would do for anybody.” Wolf mentioned that it was a particularly crowded time of day when she snapped the photo. “It was so busy in here, and she actually took the time to stop and hear what he had to say instead of walking past him. That just meant something to me.”
The kind gesture resonated with thousands of people worldwide. As of this posting, Wolf’s Facebook post has received over 144,000 likes and has been shared over 72,000 times.
A recent Texas City High School graduate, Williams has been working at the Waffle House full-time to earn money for college. Officials at Texas Southern University saw the story, and at a ceremony last Thursday, offered Williams a $16,000 scholarship to the school.
The school has assigned Williams a counselor to help her begin a degree. She is planning to study business management.