Giving away $200 isn’t an easy thing to do, but Sofia Andrade did so without a second thought on Feb. 13.

The single mom of three had just won $200 on a $2 scratch ticket, and was thinking about all the things she could do with it – buy boots for her kids, or use it for food – when she saw Glenn Williams, a homeless man, standing outside in the bitter cold on Saturday night.

“I called him over to my car, and asked him if I could buy him a hot meal,” Andrade said. “But then I remembered being at Chuck-E-Cheese’s that morning, and how it physically hurt to walk from my car to the door. He didn’t have a place to go, and I couldn’t let him get out of my car, knowing he wouldn’t have anywhere to go.”

Andrade said she put up Williams in the Rosewood Motel for a few nights (he has since been moved, because the television media attention upset him), where she knew she could check up on him to make sure he was okay, made a Facebook post, and thought that that would be the end of it.

But it wasn’t the end of it.

“I had no idea the Facebook post would go viral,” Andrade said. “I have had people messaging me from as far away as Georgia and Texas.”

Since the weekend, Andrade said she has been receiving donations of both money and items for Williams. A GoFundMe page has even been set up for him, which garnered more than $9,000 in one day.

“When I saw that this morning, I almost died,” Andrade said.

Andrade said she has also been writing personal thank-yous to everyone who has donated to Williams.

One of those individuals is Alex Muse, who donated clothes to Williams, and brought him to the grocery store. Muse said he had to coax Williams into buying more than just bread, peanut butter, and jelly. He said he admires Andrade, and her small act of kindness that spurred so many others.

“That is something I would not have done myself,” Muse said. “I hope this sheds light on the homeless community, and what the average person can do.”

Andrade said she believes she connected so much with him, because she was an addict, and “hit rock bottom,” as many homeless individuals have.

“I had to move away from Wareham to get clean, and I just moved back in October,” Andrade said. “I know what it is like. I slept on a porch. My family disowned me.”

She dislikes the stereotype of the homeless junkie, because, even though some homeless individuals may be addicted to drugs, many of them are just down on their luck.

Since Sunday, Andrade has taken Williams to get health insurance, and though everything has been on her own dime, she won’t take any of the money Williams wants to give her for her own family. So, she has compromised: she will give some of the money raised for Williams to the homeless community in Wareham.

But regardless of what happens, Andrade doesn’t want to keep being in the spotlight.

“I didn’t want the attention. I didn’t want to be a hero. I just wanted to someone to buy someone else a coffee, if they were down on their luck,” Andrade said.

The GoFundMe page can be found at the following link: https://www.gofundme.com/g5tsxv44