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James Robertson

For the past 10 years, Detroit resident James Robertson has walked 21 miles without fail to his Rochester Hills, Michigan factory job once his 1988 Honda Accord stopped working. Robertson always planned on getting a new car but making $10.55 an hour, isn’t nearly enough for him to buy one, and he couldn’t afford to catch a cab to work either. With no co-workers living near him or a bus to drop him directly off to work, Robertson had no choice but to walk to work. Robertson leaves his home at 8 AM to make the 21 mile trek to work in order to be on time for his 2 PM shift. He gets off at 10 PM and walks home regardless of the weather. The 56-year-old man has done this without fail for five days a week and has been on time for his job at Schain Mold & Engineering.  When the Detroit Free Press ran a story on Robertson, 19-year old college student Evan Leedy read it and became motivated to help once he saw the comments users left wanting to know how they can assist Robertson. Leedy remarked:

I just used my phone. I created the go-funding site and within an hour we had $2,000. I set the goal at the beginning of $5,000.

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Once word got out about Leedy’s GoFundMe campaign, local car dealerships contacted him wanting to donate a car to Robertson. Strangers have also flooded Leedy’s page with donations in order to help Robertson purchase a car as well as pay for insurance, and gas. As of today, Leedy’s fundraising efforts have reached $267,855. Robertson was touched by the overwhelming compassion his story caused and stated:

I gotta say, this is Detroit, this is how people are in Detroit. They say Los Angeles is the city of angels. That’s wrong. Detroit is the real city of angels.

Last night, he and Leedy finally met up where he thanked him for the help he created. Watch the video below.

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Tearjerker: Detroit Man Who Walks 21 Miles A Day To Work Gets Over $260K In Donations Raised For New Car  was originally published on hellobeautiful.com