Have you ever been somewhere unfamiliar and gotten separated from a friend? You truly never feel alone until you’re wandering a suddenly scary place by yourself, with absolutely no idea where you’re going. Friendly smiles can seem like grimaces and you start to remember all the horror stories you’ve seen on the news.
Luckily, most of us have cell phones and GPS to get us out of these messes, but when Kinley Crenshaw lost her friend after a late-night concert, she was completely on her own.
Kinley is a young woman from Richmond, Virginia, who had made plans to go see a concert with a friend. When the two girls arrived at the National Theatre in the city’s downtown core, Kinley passed her possessions to her pal, who would hold them in her purse during the performance.
The girls had a great time at the concert, but afterward, they got separated in the crowd. Kinley searched everywhere but couldn’t find the girl.
The worst part? She didn’t have anything— it was still all in her friend’s purse.
“We got separated from each other,” Kinley told NBC12.
“I didn’t have my wallet, my keys, my phone, anything.”
The temperature that night was subzero, at about 20°F— and as Kinley walked the dark streets at 11;30 PM, she didn’t even have her coat.
As the girl asked people where to find a bus stop, she attracted the attention of some “unsavory” characters. Luckily, a Good Samaritan was in the right place at the right time.
Felicia Glover and her boyfriend had just left a restaurant and were seeing their friend off on the bus. That’s when the young Kinley caught the woman’s eye.
“When she [Kinley] started talking to people, asking them which bus to catch, it started to bother me because I’m a mother; I’m a grandmother,” Felicia said.
“This girl don’t have a coat; she’s by herself; she doesn’t have a way home. We’ve gotta do something.”
At that moment, Felicia walked up to Kinley and gave the girl her coat— and then waited to make sure the girl got on the bus safely.
“She took her coat off and put it on me,” Kinley recalled.
“This is someone giving me her coat off her back, like literally the shirt off her back.”
Before getting on the bus, Kinley asked the woman her name and wrote it on her hand so she wouldn’t forget. Then, after she got home safely, she asked NBC12 News for some help.
Kinley posted what Felicia had done on the NBC12 Facebook page, and from there the story exploded.
“Fifty likes, a hundred likes, two hundred likes, I mean it just completely blew up.”
People were determined to help Kinley find the woman they called her “guardian angel”— and eventually, they managed to track Felicia down. The two women met for lunch, where Kinley returned the coat, but the young girl still wanted to do something more.
Then, Kinley teamed up with NBC journalist Sabrina Squire to repay Felicia in a very special way.
It turns out that, as a result of sickness, Felicia was not able to work. So, it goes without saying, that money had been tight. Along with NBC’s Acts of Kindness, Kinley arrived at Felicia’s door with a $300 gift to repay her for her kindness.
At first, the humble woman refuses the cash, but with a bit of persuasion from Sabrina Squire, she finally takes the gift. “I’ve worked as a meter maid downtown for years, so I’ve seen homeless people, I’ve seen people who are just down on their luck.
“You have to help everybody,” Felicia said.
“It’s not just about yourself.”
For her part, Kinley is grateful Felicia was on her side that night: “I’m so glad she was at the bus stop because the whole story could have gone a completely different way.”
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