After ordering Chipotle by delivery, a metro Phoenix resident was surprised to find a handwritten note in the bottom of the brown paper bag.
The delivery driver had left a note in her bag explaining why he was delivering food.
“I’m driving for (a food delivery service) on the side to give my fiancée the wedding she deserves. Any additional tip through the app or Venmo is greatly appreciated!” the note said.
The note ended with the Venmo handle for the driver, Paul Slobodzian, at the end.
Warmed by his sentiments, TikTok user @erica_cristal posted the note on TikTok with the captions “if he wanted to, he would sis” and “I don’t have a lot of followers but hopefully this reaches the right people.”
The video, which was posted on Friday, was met with more than 20 million views and thousands of comments as of Monday afternoon.
The comment section was flooded by users who sent money to the couple through Venmo or praised Erica for sharing the story online. One user commented on the thoughtfulness of Slobodzian’s note, “and it’s handwritten. could u imagine him just sitting there late at night writing a whole bunch of them.”
The video even captured the attention of Chipotle and The Knot who both donated money through Venmo.
In response to the outpouring of support for Slobodzian’s cause, he posted his own video on his TikTok account, @paulslobo711.
“We have been overwhelmed, in the best way possible, trying to figure out how to respond to people and show how much this means to us,” Slobodzian said in his response video.
Slobodzian and his fiancée, Aly Perkins, met when they were both students at Arizona State University.
“We were friends pretty much from the moment we met. We hung out together all the time and we were good friends for a year,” Slobodzian said in an interview with The Arizona Republic. “In 2018, September, I officially asked her to be my girlfriend and we got together then. We have just been inseparable ever since.”
The couple got engaged in September and had to decide on their wedding.
“We had to look at each other and be like, ‘We know weddings are expensive. How are we going to make that happen?'” Perkins said. “We ultimately decided that we were both going to take on second jobs doing food delivery to pay for this wedding.”
Now, almost 18 months and over 3,000 hours of driving later, Slobodzian and Perkins’s dedication and sacrifice have been validated and praised by TikTok users.
“Just in the last 24 hours, we have earned enough to be able to stop driving and we’ll be able to reclaim that time to spend together,” Slobodzian said after the original TikTok went viral.
“It has truly changed our lives and I just wanted to say how grateful I am for everyone,” Slobodzian said. “How grateful I am for Erica for advocating for two strangers.”
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Why Arizona delivery driver’s note about his wedding went viral
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