Community Corner: Request For Spare Change Leads To Life Change
SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS) - A starving, homeless young boy asked a successful sales executive for some spare change. This is not an unusual scene, especially here in San Francisco, but it's what happened next that makes this story so unique.
On that fateful day 25 years ago, Laura Schroff bought that young panhandler lunch at McDonald's and an unlikely friendship was born. She shares her story in the New York Times bestseller, An Invisible Thread.
KCBS' Connie C. Kim interviews author Laura Schroff:
"When I first saw him, I was really surprised that this 11-year-old boy was panhandling on the street and what really resonated with me was the fact that he said he was hungry," Schroff described her first encounter with Maurice Mazyck. "In my wildest dreams I never would've thought ...25 years later we would still be unbelievably close, great friends."
After meeting with him for weeks, Schroff offered Mazyck either money or a homemade lunch for the days they couldn't eat together. He requested a brown paper bag because "when kids come to school and they have their lunch in a brown paper bag that means somebody cares for them."
"Simple things in life that we all take for granted, children like Maurice don't have," Schroff said.
By sharing her story, she hopes to inspire others that a simple act of kindness can make an enormous impact.
"We met and I don't believe it was an accident. There are those invisible threads that connect people and I believe that we were destined to be connected," Schroff said. "As much as he needed me, I needed him."
For more information and to share your own 'invisible thread' story, go to www.aninvisiblethread.com.
(Copyright 2012 by CBS San Francisco. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
