Carlos Valdez and his wife love pineapple on their pizza. It’s the couple’s standing order from Papa John’s in Roy, Utah—but along with their topping of choice, Carlos and his wife always requested that the pies be brought to them by their favorite deliveryman, Derlin Newey.
At 89 years old, Newey is a lot older than your average pizza delivery dude, yet the Valdezes fell in love with the senior citizen’s positive attitude and his cheerful catchphrase, “Hello, are you looking for some pizza?”
The Valezes were so taken by Newey’s charming manner, they started filming Newey’s dapper deliveries and posting them to their TikTok video feed. Soon enough, he became something of a senior sensation with their 53,000 followers.
But as much as people loved Newey’s charisma, a lot their feedback expressed concern that an elderly man was still spending so many hours on the job.
With that in mind, the Valzezes decided to reach out to their fans in hopes of raising a little money to help Newey out.
The response was off the hook.
“Collectively as a TikTok community, we all came together, and we were able to raise $12,000 for this amazing person,” Valdez told KLS.
This past Tuesday, Newey got a surprise delivery at his own home. Valdez showed up at his door with a t-shirt that read ‘Hello, are you looking for some pizza?’ in one hand—and a check for $12,069 in the other. (Watch the moment below…)
The former ski champion, who was working as many as 30 hours a week to supplement his Social Security, was overcome with emotion by the generosity of so many strangers. “How do I ever say thank you? I don’t know what to say,” Newey told Deseret News.
For his part, Valdez was thrilled to be able to give something back to a man who’d delivered so much joy to those around him just by being himself. “This couldn’t have gone any better,” Valdez said.
“He needed this. I’m just glad we could help him. We just need to treat people with kindness and respect the way he does. He stole our hearts.”
On the great, big pizza of life, it’s hard to top that.
