A Delaware River Port Authority police officer caught on video giving a homeless man a new pair of shoes earlier this month will receive special recognition for his kindhearted act on Monday.
Congressman Donald Norcross will honor DRPA Police Officer Kenya Joyner during a ceremony at DRPA headquarters in Camden at 10 a.m., according to Norcross' press office.
On Saturday, Nov. 7, Kayla Palmer, of Pine Hill, New Jersey told NBC10 she and her father were at the PATCO station in Lindenwold about 4:30 p.m. when they spotted a homeless man who had just been kicked off a bus.
“My dad saw the man get kicked off the bus,” Palmer said. “He didn’t have any shoes on. I came up and he was telling me about it.”
Palmer then saw Joyner approach the shoeless man.
“We saw the officer pull back up and we thought he was gonna tell him to leave,” Palmer said. “Instead he came out with a box of shoes.”
Palmer began recording as the man tried on the pair of boots Joyner gave him.
“That was nice of you,” Palmer said to the officer as she walked towards him. “I wanna shake your hand. You’re gonna go viral!”
“Oh come on,” Joyner said, laughing.
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Yet while the officer didn’t want to be in the spotlight, Palmer is hoping that his kind act gets the attention it deserves. She later posted the video on Facebook.
“He needed some recognition,” she said. “Because you do see some of those negative stories.”
According to Norcross' office, Joyner's random act of kindness has been seen by "hundreds of thousands of people around the globe" after the video did indeed go viral as Palmer had hoped it would.
