Spreading joy: Young brothers deliver peanut butter, jelly sandwiches to Philadelphia homeless

Trish Hartman Image
Monday, March 20, 2017
Young brothers deliver peanut butter, jelly sandwiches to Philly homeless
Brady and Bradley Daniel, ages 4 and 6, from Smyrna, Delaware, gave up their Sunday to hand out lunch to homeless men and women in Philadelphia.

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- As a homeless man sat in the sun on Rittenhouse Square Sunday, he was approached by two small boys, dressed alike, holding a brown paper bag.

"I guess they're out helping the homeless people, and just walked up to me and asked me if I wanted a lunch, so I said sure," said the unidentified man.

The two boys are Brady and Bradley Daniel, ages 4 and 6, from Smyrna, Delaware.

"It was all my idea," said Bradley.

"And me!" said Brady.

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Bradley and Brady Daniel made lunches and then went into the city to hand them out to those in need.

The two spent their day handing out lunches to the homeless in Philadelphia with their parents.

"We made apples, we made peanut butter sandwiches and we made chocolate - well we didn't make that," said Brady.

After years of giving out bottles of water while stopped at traffic lights, the boys got the idea when they were given tickets to the circus for Valentine's Day.

"Bradley was like, 'Mom, where is it at?' And I was like, 'It's in Philadelphia.' And he was like, 'Can we take food and feed the homeless people?' " said Brady and Bradley's mother Sandra Daniel.

"Because they need to have food to make sure they don't die," said Bradley.

They gave out dozens of sandwiches last month and the reception was so positive, they came back to do it again.

"It makes me smile. To see that people are aware that I'm still somebody in the world," said an unidentified homeless man.

In all their careful preparation, the boys even put smiley faces on the sandwich bags. That little symbol meant more to one man than any of them ever could have imagined.

"We gave him the bag and we went up the block and we came back, and on the way back, he was rubbing the smiley face and smiling, and that was just like so touching. It put everything in perspective," said Sandra Daniel.

Then she said they saw the man fold up the bag and put it in his pocket, saving the bag and the smile for another day.

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