Volunteers Come Together To Shovel Snow For Seniors

CHICAGO (CBS) -- If you've ever had to dig out after a heavy snow, you know it's no easy job. Thankfully, some Chicago senior citizens didn't have to worry about that.

As CBS 2's Audrina Bigos reports, dozens of volunteers answered a call to help shovel for strangers on the South Side.

They came, unannounced, to neighborhoods that were completely snowed in.

"When I came from the gangway, I looked up and saw people. I was like who are all these people, what's going on?" homeowner Marc Townsend said.

The volunteers started off in the Roseland neighborhood then went to Chatham, targeting blocks full of senior residents.

One volunteer, Dave DeYoung, said nothing was shoveled at all.

"Some seniors had neuropathia in both hands and couldn't shovel, some were on oxygen tanks, some had asthma, and they needed help," Jahmal Cole said, who organized the event.

"Never seen anything like this in 24 years," Townsend said of the kind act. "This is a godsend."

The shoveled sidewalks all started with posts on social media. It hit Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and then proceeded to get retweeted and shared thousands of times.

"It came across my Twitter feed and Facebook feed over and over and over again. And I saw it again this morning," DeYoung said.