Gerrell with his daughter
Gerrell with his daughter
Gerell's late mother.
he's been healing from the loss — but he's mostly focused on caring for his daughter.
Trusler told that her dad wanted to send her money as a 30th birthday gift to help her recoup the cost of a new couch she recently purchased.
So on Thursday morning, he sent Trusler $1,200 via PayPal using her phone number.
However, her father had accidentally sent the amount to her old phone number.
That old number now belongs to McAllister in Tacoma.
But he said once he realized it was a real PayPal payment, he started "freaking out."
"I immediately woke up," he added.
"I didn’t know where it was from."
But he said he instinctively issued a full refund to the sender (Trusler's dad) within a few minutes, along with a note that read, "Tell her I said happy birthday."
"Tacoma has a reputation of being lower-class and untrustworthy," McAllister explained.
"We call it the 'Tacoma grit,' but we’re not bad people."
"It was important to me to use this as an example to reverse some of those stereotypes, whether racial stereotypes or about young people.
Hopefully, people can learn from it."
"Oh my god,” McAllister responded.
He fell silent for a moment.
"I’m kind of at a loss for words, kind of feeling emotional," he said eventually.
Trusler thought these shared experiences prove just "how connected communities can be."
"To be honest I haven’t checked my PayPal since that day," he said, admitting that he doesn't know how much people have donated thus far.
"I want to try to message everyone back individually to say thank you.
"I don’t want the money to detract from that.
I don’t want that to dilute the intent."
"For what I’ve taken from this, it’s been a major part of the healing process for me," he added.