John Frank is a disabled veteran who lives in Denver. He loves his home, but because he moves around in a wheelchair, it is difficult for him to maintain the yard.Frank can’t do any lawn mowing, and he can’t really work on his yard to keep it nice and beautiful.This is why he recently decided to redo it, and make it more wheelchair-friendly and as low-maintenance as possible.
When he finally got an offer from a landscaper, he thought almost $5k was a good deal, and he decided to move forward with buying the landscaper’s services.He didn’t even complain when he was asked to pay the whole amount up front. He was sure everything was going to be fine. Only it didn’t.
The landscaper turned out to be a scammer, who got Frank’s money and disappeared without working on the yard at all.
“I feel that I got ripped off,” the man told FOX31 Denver. “They took advantage of a disabled person.”
Indeed, the man felt that he wouldn’t get the chance to fix his yard because he had lost all that money. At the same time, he was losing faith in humanity because someone had treated him like this.
But, thankfully, there are still nice people out there, willing to go above and beyond for those who really need their help.
One of those people is Hector Alderete, owner of Neighborhood Lawn Care. The man happened to be watching the local news when he found out about what had happened to the disabled veteran.
“It came on. I was like, ‘oh no we’re going to do something about it,’” Hector told B101.
He knew inside him that he had to help the man, so he immediately called his coworkers. He asked them if they were willing to donate their services to a disabled elderly man who had just been scammed. They all agreed, and they soon started working on redoing Frank’s yard.
Tree stumps were removed, the ground was leveled, landscape fabric was installed, and about 50 tons of rock was laid.
What would have cost more than $15k was offered to Frank for free, and he couldn’t be more grateful.
As for why Hector decided to do it? He said that he was really touched by the veteran’s story and he wanted to help him out.
“Any little bit of help that you could help somebody out, makes a big difference for somebody else. You just don’t see, you just don’t know, sometimes you help somebody out and it just feels good to do it,” Alderete told FOX31 Denver.
Frank was really moved by Alderete and his crew’s act of kindness. It just touched his heart and he couldn’t hold back his tears.
“We need to hear the positive,” he said. “That makes people know there’s hope and that good things can happen.”