Before his mother passed away suddenly in 2020, Jaylan Gray was in school working toward becoming a park ranger. But without their only parent, the 23-year-old had to give up his dream and care for his 13-year-old brother Julian. Then when they thought things couldn’t get any worse, the Great Texas Freeze hit in 2021, bursting the pipes at their Katy, Texas, home, leaving it uninhabitable. And a shady contractor took their life savings to make the repairs and disappeared, leaving the boys struggling to survive.
Fortunately, Katy Responds, a non-profit that helps repair homes after natural disasters, heard about the brothers' predicament and helped restore their house, saving the boys in more ways than one. "They had no idea people would want to jump in and help them," says Katy Responds director Ron Peters.
The positive turn didn't stop there. After Julian and Jaylan’s story started getting around, people across the country wanted to help. A group of generous donors got together and decided to fund Jaylan's college education, covering all of the expenses for him to return to school and resume his dream of becoming a park ranger. Jaylan says it’s been a “complete 180” from where they were just a couple of years ago. And the boys owe it to random acts of kindness from strangers.
Source: CBS NEWS
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