“Mother of Two Leaves” Supplies for Homeless Young Man in Her Yard (Exclusive)

• In August, Ellie Pimentel first noticed a teenager sleeping on cinder blocks on the side of the road.
• Since it was the middle of summer, a Washington state resident thought the teenager might have just returned from soccer practice. But after she continued dating him, she began to become increasingly worried.
• By September, Pimentel decided to take action and left him some items with a note. She posted about it on TikTok in a video that has since gone viral.

Ellie Pimentel was pulling out of her driveway in August when she noticed a teenager sleeping on cinder blocks on the side of the road.

Since it was the middle of summer, a local Washington state man thought he might have just returned from football practice. “I was in the orchestra,” Pimentel, a mother of two, tells PEOPL. “I understand. My porch is your porch. These are free porches.”

However, as the 31-year-old continued to date the boy, her anxiety grew. One day, while walking with the children to a local establishment, she met his gaze. “It was just a mutual, ‘I see you,’” she recalls. “He looked very cautious. He looked at me and I looked at him.”

By September, Pimentel had seen the teenager often enough to notice that he looked rougher than before. Even though she didn’t want to cross the line and interfere in his life, she felt that something was wrong. Then, one day that month, noticing him in the lot next door to hers, she closed the garage door and thought, “I have to do something.”

“There was a very clear division in my head of I’m a person and this is a person and we both take care of ourselves in the world,” she says. “Then the next thought was, ‘Okay, but what if this goes south?’ That’s when I picked up my phone and decided to write down everything I was going to do.”

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Putting herself in his shoes, she thought about the temperature and how hard the cinder blocks must be. She went inside and grabbed an extra sleeping bag, a pillow, and a waterproof backpack. Pimentel, who works for Adventurer Manufacturing, filled a bag with soup cans, spoons, napkins and other essentials, then added a note and sealed everything in a plastic container.

“I wrote the note in English and Spanish,” she says. “I wanted to convey that this is not a trap. “I don’t have extensive experience working with the homeless population, but I do know that there is a certain level of caution that comes with living life at times.”

“I tried to walk a fine line between making it available to him without any strings attached. I’m doing this because I see you, and if it benefits you, great. If you want to continue sleeping on the porch, that’s fine. But if you want to improve your situation, here are these things, without any pressure anyway.”

After collecting the items, Pimentel knew she needed to put them somewhere safe from theft. She initially left the trash can near her fence, but after the boy didn’t show up for several days, she realized it might be stolen or removed by landscapers. Inside the fence, this seemed to be the only option. To keep the landscapers from disturbing the bag—or him—when they arrived on Wednesdays, she taped a large, waterproof note to the lid.

A few days later, she found a note taped to her door, written on a piece of receipt paper, thanking her for the items. The teenager also tried to talk to her in person – he actually rang her doorbell, she later realized. Although they continued to communicate through notes, they did not speak in person until late October.

“When we finally spoke in person, he shared part of his story with me,” she says. “I have done my best to keep this information confidential. “He was very vulnerable and shared sensitive details.”

“That led to a 90-minute conversation where he laid out what was going on,” she continues. “I informed him that we would need to take the next steps. I started calling resources and gathering information for this next step.”

Throughout, Pimentel continued to film and eventually posted the videos to TikTok, where they have since gone viral. She told PEOPLE it was completely different from anything she’d ever posted before, and while she wasn’t sure if she should post, she felt like the TikTok community could give her advice on the situation.

According to her, after publication the reaction was overwhelmingly positive. “A lot of people said I did a good thing or praised me as a person, even though I literally did the bare minimum,” she says. “A lot of people praise me for it, and I would say most of the comments reflect that. That’s not why I did it, but I appreciate all the good feedback.”

“I save content for discussions in the comments where people share their experiences,” she adds. “Some people suggest things like, ‘Just let him live with you’ or ‘Just buy him a tent.’ It’s interesting to see how this discourse unfolds as people decide on similar issues—like whether to use a sleeping bag or a pillow. They collectively solve some of the dilemmas I faced in just a split second.”

Pimentel also notes that people have begun sharing their own experiences of homelessness in the comments. Having grown up in foster care before being permanently relocated before the first day of second grade, she finds comfort in knowing that she has created a space where strangers feel comfortable opening up.

She adds that she took this opportunity to educate her young children. At one point they asked, “Mom, why are you leaving this note here?” She explained that she saw a boy in need and left him a note, hoping he would read it and respond.

“I try to talk to my kids about noticing things and putting themselves in other people’s shoes,” she says. “Ultimately, that’s what I hope people take away from my experience.”

“I think the main theme was just paying attention to our surroundings,” she adds. “If you can do the bare minimum, why not? I have shared my “get together with me” or “take a trip with me” videos and we watch countless videos like this. It’s easy to just take what you have if that’s what you need. you want to do. But even if you can’t take further action, it’s important to simply notice that even the first step toward recognizing someone as a human being is significant progress.”