Women Crowdfund Homeless Man’s Funeral

Duc Van Tran was a regular feature beneath one of the overpasses in Houston, Texas. According to the locals, Duc never asked for help or money and just went about minding his own business. No one really knew much about him, and that's thought to be down to a possible language barrier. Whatever Duc's situation was, though, he was part of the community, and some of the residents would bring him food, drink, and other items. Two of these generous locals are Rosa Quintero and Adriana Castro Garcia. They would regularly bring him homemade meals, or food they'd bought him from the shop, but they still knew so little about him. "He would just give a look of 'thank you' with a smile and go back to his cart," they said. But one day, Duc disappeared from his spot, and after not seeing him for a while, they started to worry. They started asking around to see if anyone knew where he had gotten to. That is when they learned that Duc had been killed one night in May after being struck by a drunk driver beneath the overpass. It was thought that Duc had been sleeping when the driver lost control of the vehicle. "I really don't watch TV or listen to the radio," explained Rosa, "so I had no idea what happened until the beginning of this month." She contacted the medical examiner's office to find out about Duc's arrangements and was surprised to hear that his body was still there, unclaimed. Rose informed the medical examiner that she would like to claim Duc's body - an expensive procedure. "I just want to provide him a nice funeral," she explained. To raise the money for a funeral and cremation for Duc, Rosa and Adriana set up a GoFundMe crowdfunding page, asking for donations to go towards funeral costs. "Mr Tran may be gone, but we have the opportunity now to do right by him and acknowledge him as a member of our family in this community," they said on the page. The event was set up with a target of $2,500, and people responded really well! At the time of writing - a week after the fund was started - almost 180 people had donated to the cause and it had reached a staggering $5,580. Duc Van Tran's funeral is to be held this Saturday (details are on GoFundMe), and it is all thanks to Rosa Quintero and Adriana Castro Garcia. They wanted to show that although no one knew very much about the man beneath the overpass, he still mattered to them.