'Couldn't just walk past': Middle schoolers spend 40 minutes pushing elderly man's recycling cart

A heartwarming story has been making the rounds online about a group of middle school students who helped an elderly man collecting cardboard and scrap paper late at night, accompanying him all the way to a recycling depot.

On Saturday, a post appeared on the social media platform Threads describing an encounter with the students, who were helping the elderly man with his load.

The author, identified only as A, wrote that she had come across "kind middle school students helping an elderly man collect scrap paper and walking with him all the way to the recycling depot." She added that she "couldn't just pass them by — it was so touching to see kids like this in this day and age."

Photos posted alongside the message showed two middle schoolers pushing and pulling a cart loaded with cardboard, one at the front and one at the back.

A also wrote that the elderly man had a one-hour walk ahead of him to reach the depot and had skipped a meal, prompting the students to offer to buy him something from a convenience store. "How can they have such beautiful hearts?" she wrote, adding that she wanted to share the students' kindness with others.

One of the students later posted their own account of what had happened.

The student wrote that they had been trying to get home after eating malatang with a friend when they missed the last bus. "On the way, we saw an elderly man struggling to collect scrap paper, and we couldn't just walk past him, so we decided to take him to the recycling depot," the student said.

The student added that while the journey was a little tough, a passerby couple — referred to as "ajeossi" and "ajumma," terms for an older man and woman — helped them along the way, allowing them to cover what would normally be an hour-long route in just 40 minutes.

"It felt like the first time in my life I had done something truly helpful for someone, and I was really proud," the student wrote, and went on to say, "If something like this happens again, I want to be the kind of person who stops to help instead of walking by."

Online commenters responded warmly to the story. "This warms my heart," wrote one user. Others said the students showed "real character," that they wanted to meet the students' parents, and that the pair were "a rare find."