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Food

The Internet Really Wants to Send This Street Food Vendor on Vacation

One lucky street food vendor and his family could soon be off to the Caribbean.

If you visit the homepage of GoFundMe, you'll see crowdfunding campaigns to help raise money for suffering people to pay for their hospital bills, for underprivileged schools send their students on field trips, or to help give relief to the famine in Somalia.

But this week, one campaign that gained a surprising amount of attention was to send a street food vendor on vacation.

Writer Tejal Rao's story in the New York Times documenting a day in the life of Kabir Ahmed went viral, and now readers just went to send the lovable halal food vendor on a trip with his family. From Ahmed's long early-morning commute, through the bustle of the noon-time crowds, to the end of his shift after 3 PM, it's clear the job isn't an easy one.

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"Now I cannot get sick," Ahmed tells Rao, "and I cannot stop working."

The story ends with him musing on what it would be like to take his family on a vacation—a big Caribbean cruise, but he worries the cost is too high and that he can't be away from his cart for that long.

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However, that vacation could finally be happening for Ahmed and his family, thanks to readers moved by the story. After reading, a woman named Jennifer Nelson created a GoFundMe account called "A Caribbean Cruise for Kabir Ahmed."

"Everybody deserves a vacation, but especially the hard working folks who keep us fed," writes Nelson, in her campaign pitch.

The story has clearly made an impression on people, and the GoFundMe has already blasted past its goal of $3,000 to more than double, raising more than $6,000 at the time of publishing.

"Let's make this dream come true," urges Nelson. It seems likely.