Last summer, Shane Jones was looking to make a little extra money when he stumbled upon a series of YouTube videos explaining how to profit off of buying repossessed storage units.
His first win was a storage unit whose contents he purchased for $100, though upon seeing the items he won, he had a change of heart.
Jones found household goods, stuffed animals, personal mementos, and even documents all belonging to the original owner, and he told the Washington Post he remembers feeling "sad" at these finds.
Jones said, "I realized then that this wasn't the same as getting stuff at a yard sale. This guy was in prison, and his storage unit was auctioned off because he couldn't afford to pay for it. This was probably everything he had left."
With the help of his parents, Jones tracked down the original owner's mother to return all of the items from the storage unit and seeing her reaction to receiving the items inspired Jones to enter more auctions and reunite other owners with their personal effects stuck in storage.
He's since bought units belonging to a man whose since passed, but kept family heirlooms that his family was ecstatic to possess again, and a woman who was unable to pay for her unit after losing her job.
She lost a child three years ago to sudden infant death syndrome, and all of her baby's items were in that unit. Jones said, "[She] said everything she had to remind her of her baby was in that locker, and she just didn't have the finances to keep up with the payments."
Once the woman saw her items waiting for her, Jones said "she started to cry."
Jones' mom Sarah Markey couldn't be more proud of her son.
She said of his actions, "I couldn't be more proud of this kid, for going the extra step, for people he doesn't know. Kindness inspires kindness. Buying the contents of a storage unit and giving them back is a creative way to pay it forward. Shane hopes that somebody else will get the idea to do the same thing in their own town."
