A contractor who was approached by a homeless man asking for work was impressed by the man’s industrious spirit and decided to give him a chance, sparking a massive response on social media.
Born and raised in the town of Lahaina on Maui, Hawaii, 43-year-old Kimo Clark has owned and run Truth Excavation since 2011. On Friday, May 5, his day off, Clark was in a Lahaina bank parking lot running some errands when a scruffy man of a similar age to himself approached from a red Ford truck.
“He’s like, ‘Hey, I’m just looking for work,’” Clark told The Epoch Times. “He looked like a laborer, like he was ready to work in a t-shirt and jeans, and just the look in his eyes, honestly; it looked like he needed help.”
Clark believed that the homeless man has seen construction vehicles before and had gone up to them to say: “Hey, I want to work. I’m hungry.'”
While Clark is heavily involved in the community, he takes part in beach cleanups, donation drives, and church events, he had never helped the homeless. “But this guy was different because he wasn’t asking for a handout,” he said. “He wasn’t asking for money, he was asking for a job.”
Clark noticed the toolbox and personal items inside the Ford and intuited that the man, who remains anonymous by request, was living in his truck. Clark decided to take a chance, and invited the man to accompany him to a client’s house to do some hand digging and manage hydraulic hoses, which the man learned quickly.
After four hours of work, Clark gave the veteran $100 in cash, a quarter of his earnings for the job, and told him to come back on Sunday or Monday. However the veteran never showed up, so Clark turned to social media.
The contractor has been filming work projects and sharing them on Instagram for years. After working with the veteran, he posted a clip to his Instagram and the post blew up. Two days later, it had amassed millions of views and countless requests to donate to the homeless man.
Clark tried to find the veteran so that he could share with him about all the people that wanted to help him. But when he couldn’t he did a follow-up video since he knew he was around Lahaina, which is a small town.
“I heard people say, ‘Oh yeah, I saw this guy!’” he said. “I went to the homeless shelter, I went to the homeless camps, I drove around, I rode around on my bike.
“I thought, man, I’m going to find this guy, I’m going to show him all these people that care ... I’m gonna give him a job.”
A week later, Clark responded to a sighting of the veteran at a Lahaina restaurant and received a text the very next day from the veteran. He apologized for not showing up, but refused Clark’s offer of help, and also requested he remove the video from social media. The post by that time had 9 million views and 500,000 comments.
Clark learned a little about the man’s life. He hailed from Texas and served in Afghanistan. He had a son and wife, “or maybe ex-wife,” Clark said.
He also got to know that the veteran and his family weren’t on talking terms and he had moved to escape them.
Since he had gone to the war, he had killed people and “was worried that having his face on the internet, people from Afghanistan would come and find him.”
“I said, ‘Hey, Jesus loves you, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done.’ ... ‘I have friends here that are ex-Navy SEALs on Maui, you need to talk to somebody that has been in your situation, been to war, killed people,’” Clark said.
Clark later gave the veteran another $300 and insisted that he turned his phone on so that he would stay in touch. That night, he prayed and vowed to “just keep trying” and “have the right intentions.”
“Eventually their walls are gonna break down,” he said. “Maybe some words will sink into his heart and he'll want to make a change, but really, just like everything, you can’t force people.”
Clark, who is a Christain believer, said: “How do you help them when they don’t want help? What do you say to someone that has no hope?” he said. “For me, I can lose everything; I can lose my family, I can lose my business. I can lose my money ... but I'll never lose my hope. My hope is in Jesus, and that’s what faith does.”
Clark has hope that the pair will reconnect in the future. In the meantime, his good deed for the hardworking homeless man has already sparked a ripple effect at his own company.
“One of my main guys did something really awesome on the weekend,” he said. “He spent, like, 400 bucks and he bought a bunch of food, he went to all the homeless camps, and he just started passing out food and water. I didn’t even suggest doing that, he just did it on his own.”
