Giving someone the shirt off your back is a time-worn phrase that means performing an act of kindness to help someone.
A Chicago man helped a homeless man by giving him the snow boots off his feet, WLS reported.
Jessica Bell posted the good Samaritan act on Facebook. She said she was riding a train home last week when she saw Maurice Anderson take off his expensive snow boots and give them to a homeless man.
The homeless man, Bell wrote on Facebook, was “older, weathered, minding his own business.”
“His feet are so swollen he's wearing the tattered gym shoes he has with the back folded down, like slip-ons,” Bell wrote. “I don't know how many pairs of socks he's wearing in an attempt to keep his feet warm but there is blood seeping through.”
The homeless man said his feet might have been frostbitten, Anderson told WLS.
“I asked him what size shoe did he wear. He was like, ‘A 12.’ I myself was a 12, so I said ‘Here you go,’” Anderson told WLS.
Anderson handed the homeless man his black snow boots and a pair of socks. Anderson, who currently works as a service technician in Kentucky, had a spare pair of boots in his suitcase, which he put on, WLS reported.
“This is not what you see on the train every day, it was amazing,” Bell told WLS.
Bell snapped a few photos of the boots changing feet and posted them on social media.
“It was a really selfless and quiet act, no fanfare,” Bell told WLS. “It just happened.”
“He's already in distress, he's out in the cold, riding the train,” Anderson told WLS. “If I'm not reaching out to help someone, I can't say anything.”
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