A kind-hearted shopkeeper who created a 'pay later' wall for hard-up customers has been stunned after cash donations flooded in from generous strangers. The convenience store owner had started to pin receipts from cash-strapped customers to the wall.
Receipts show that Abid Hussain gave away food and drink amounting to £2,000. Donations arrived when members of the community found out.
An emotional Abid could barely contain his tears when he found out kind strangers were sending in cash to his East Cleveland store. As reported by Teesside Live donations arrived from the local community and travel company TUI, where Abid was formerly a cabin crew member.
One magnanimous stranger even dropped off an envelope stuffed with £100. Abid says while staff at his Family Mart store in Lingdale have always let people have the odd item "on tick", things have been getting worse as the cost of living soars.
Now he is in talks with the parish council to start providing hot dinners for vulnerable people in the village and has already carried out a trial run. Abid said "wonderful, caring, decent" ex-colleagues he worked with as cabin crew for 23 years had reduced him to tears with their kindness.
He said: "I worked at Luton, Manchester, Gatwick. Five or six years ago I ended up with bowel cancer.
"I had major surgery and have a colostomy bag. I worked with some fantastic, caring, decent people, but because of my surgery, it became difficult to go back to work.
"My colleagues saw the story and began raising money. They said 'you are not alone.'
"They sent £420. They are cabin crew, they're not rich, they're ordinary people with big hearts.
"I was quite touched, they had me in tears. I thought 'that's why I worked with these people for so long', they were my family.
"Strangers I don't even know have been dropping money off. We've had letters in the post.
"Somebody even walked in with an envelope and gave me £100. They said 'I don't want my name mentioned.'
"We've had messages from all over the country. We never intended to humiliate anyone or gain sympathy, we would never say who we were helping.
"Our message was that there are good people out there who need help and have just got into a situation where they can't afford things. Hopefully we've inspired other people to do the same.
"Other companies are starting to help with food parcels. That's what we had hoped would happen.
"I'm not a major charity, we're a business. The response has been marvellous, I'm grateful."
