Adrian Rodriguez, 17, went out of his way to return the lost purse he found to its rightful owner. Then his good deed has brought inspiration to so many people!
Eliana Martin, the owner of the purse, probably had given up hope that she’d ever see her bright green bag again. Fortunately, a teen boy with a ton of integrity made sure the lost purse was returned to her. And that special young man is Adrian Rodriguez.
Adrian came upon Eliana’s bag in a Chula Vista Ralph’s parking lot. He might have simply dropped the purse off with customer service. He could have posted on social media and hoped for the best. The teen boy could have done absolutely nothing or just kept the contents of value for himself and discarded the bag where he found it. But Adrian did none of those things!
Instead, Adrian located a driver’s license in the handbag and personally delivered it to the address he’d found on the identification. That’s going the extra mile-literally!
The owner of the lost purse turns out to be no longer living at the address. Eliana had previously lived with her best friend Melina Marquez but had since moved out.
Eliana’s buddy Melina was also not there when Adrian came by to do the good deed. Adrian left the tote with Melina’s family member and went on his way.
When Melina returned home, she was so touched by the kindness and presence of the young man she saw on her Ring camera that she wanted to find him and do something to thank him for returning Eliana’s bag.
“It was a surprise for me. Honestly? It was a surprise for me,” said Martin.
“I looked into the Ring camera, and I was like, ‘Oh my God. He’s such a young kid.’ I was like, ‘We need to find him and just give him a little piece of gratitude.’” recalled Marquez.
She posted the Ring video of Rodriquez on Facebook and the Chula Vista community quickly went to work.
“I woke up and I had a bunch of messages like, ‘Oh, is this you?’ It was weird,” Rodriquez smirked.
“Thank God, we found him,” said Marquez.
The ladies invited him to Marquez’s house so Martin could say thank you in person.
They also surprised Rodriquez with the results of an online fundraiser they created in his honor. The community donated more than $1,115 in less than a day.
“It feels good. I appreciate it. I really do, everything everybody’s doing,” said Rodriquez. “My mom always told me since I was little to always do the right thing when nobody’s around.”
“Every parent right now hopes that their children grow up to be just like this young gentleman,” concluded Marquez.
Rodriquez wasn’t sure what he’d do with the thank you gift. He mentioned getting gas for his car.
References: nbcsandiego.com, godupdates.com
