Grandma Welcomes The Stranger For 3rd Time In A Row After Accidentally Inviting Him To Thanksgiving Dinner 3 Years Ago

Nov 29, 2018 by apost team

A few years ago, Wanda Dench of Arizona made a common blunder. She accidentally sent a text message to the wrong person. This kind of mix-up happens all the time. But Wanda's exchange went in a completely different direction than usual accidental text messaging!

That memorable day in 2016 ended up becoming the start of an unlikely holiday tradition. The one who received Wanda's message was a teenager named Jamal Hinton. He was surprised to get the text from an unknown person inquiring whether or not he was coming to Thanksgiving dinner.

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The cause of the mistake was Wanda punching in the wrong number on her cell phone. She thought she was contacting her own grandson. Just out of curiosity, Jamal texted back asking her to send a picture. He then informed her that she wasn't his grandmother, but he playfully asked if he could still come and get a plate at the meal!

Wanda's reply quickly went viral when Jamal posted the conversation on social media. Her priceless response to his question was, "Of course you can. That's what grandma's do...feed everyone."

People were delighted at Wanda's welcoming and classic grandmotherly message. It melted their hearts to imagine how kind and generous she was willing to be in opening up her home to a complete stranger to share in the Thanksgiving festivities.

Jamal's visit to Wanda's home was a huge success. They so enjoyed their time together that they repeated the gathering for the third straight year for Thanksgiving of 2018.

Jamal commemorated the special event on his twitter account with the simple message, "2016, 2017..... 2018" followed by a heart emoji.

Wanda laughed about how the exchange became so popular she ended up needing to get a new phone number. Apparently, a bunch of people contacted her phone back in 2016 to thank her for her kindness!

Jamal considers Wanda as an adopted grandma. Wanda is touched that he has continued to keep in contact after their first exchange and meeting. Jamal is just as amazed and thankful for Wanda's continued friendship. He considers it a demonstration of the good that is out there in the world.

In the same spirit of Thanksgiving, an animal shelter coordinator at Richmond Animal Care has set up a way for dogs to spend this special holiday with strangers too. Christie Chipps Peters started the program of people hosting a dog for the holidays too, hopefully, reach out to new potential dog owners who hadn't ever thought of fostering a dog before.

The program has become quite promising. Over fifty percent of the animals from her shelter who were adopted throughout the year were chosen by someone who met them during their Thanksgiving holiday fostering program.

What are your thoughts about these two stories of Thanksgiving sharing and caring? We'd love to read them in the comments! Pass this article along to your friends and family to help spread holiday cheer!