Photo Credit: Chris Barnes
Officer Michael Rivers has been with the Goldsboro Police Department in North Carolina for the past nine years and he is no stranger to seeing homeless folks throughout the city. But recently, Rivers came across a woman he had never seen before. She was sitting on the side of the road, wearing a shirt that read “Homeless. The fastest way of becoming a nobody.”
Rivers drove past her, the two made eye contact, he said ‘Hey’ and kept on driving. But something kept telling him to go back.
“God put it on my heart to get her lunch,” the 29-year-old officer told CNN. “So I turned around and I asked her, ‘Hey, did you eat today?’ And she said, ‘No.'”
So he grabbed pepperoni and cheese pizzas from a nearby pizza shop and sat down on the grass next to her. The pizza they shared was great, Rivers said, but the conversation was even better.
For nearly 45-minutes, Rivers and the homeless woman, who he said identified herself as Michelle, shared their life stories. And the awesome moment was captured in a photo by a passerby, whose husband shared it on Facebook.
Michelle told Rivers she has a 12-year-old daughter who is battling liver disease and in foster care. She also has a 23-year-old son, Rivers said. Her husband, also homeless, stood across the street as the two shared pizza and chatted.
River also told CNN “I come to work and my method is, ‘Who can I bless today? Who can I make smile?” Rivers said. ‘”I’m not the one that wants to take somebody’s father or mother away and put them in jail.”