A homeless veteran who recently received over $378,000 in donations after giving a stranded woman his last $20 for gas money said he will return the favor and help out others in need.
Marine Corps veteran Johnny Bobbitt, 34, appeared on Good Morning America on Sunday morning with the woman he assisted, Kate McClure, 27. The pair had a heartwarming reunion while they described how McClure’s car broke down by the I-95 exit ramp near Philadelphia. She ran out of gas to midnight, and had planned to walk to nearest gas station and try to get help, but Bobbitt spotted her and told her to get in her car and lock the doors.
Shortly after, he returned with a can of gas he bought with $20 he earned the previous day by panhandling. The veteran even filled McClure’s car up with the gas as she graciously waited.
“I just got her gas to help her get back on her way. I didn’t think anything about it. I wasn’t expecting anything in return,” Bobbitt said. “That’s how I got the money to start with — from other people. [I had to] return the favor. I can’t constantly take and not give back.”
Johnny Bobbitt Jr., 34, was an ammunition technician in the Marines and an EMT with a promising career in medicine before becoming homeless https://t.co/DPYjuEu1Lt
— Stars and Stripes (@starsandstripes) November 23, 2017
McClure, who promised Bobbitt she would pay him back, stayed true to her word. In the days following the kind gesture, she visited Bobbitt under the ramp at the very area she ran out of gas. She brought her boyfriend, Mark D’Amico, along, and together, the couple provided Bobbitt with gift card, toiletries, and cash.
Then, they decided to take it a step further, and created a GoFundMe page, in hopes to raise around $10,000 for the veteran. They had no idea the campaign would become so popular that it would raise over $378,000 in donations.
Bobbitt was surprised and humbled himself. After living for more than a year on the streets, he now plans to secure himself a place to live and a truck to get back and forth to work in. He also plans to meet up with a financial advisor that McClure found for him, and donate some of the money to charitable organizations that offer assistance to others in need.
“This money was given to help me. Why not help other people in similar situations or people that are actively helping other people in different situations? Everybody out there is facing some kind of struggle, so if I can touch their life, the way mine was touched, [it’d be] an amazing feeling. I want to feel the feeling on the opposite end.”
[Feature Photo: Johnny Bobbitt Jr. and Kate McClure/GoFundMe]
