Chicago radio personality Ramblin’ Ray Stevens was driving to a meeting in July when he spotted a young man walking along the road’s shoulder. After his meeting, Stevens saw the same man, still walking.

"For some reason," Stevens said, "I felt compelled to pick him up, and he jumped in after some hesitation. And your story," he motioned to Braxton Mayes, "garnered national media attention. Isn’t that crazy?"

The story of Mayes, 20, included six-hour round trip walks from his Montgomery home to his job in Batavia after his SUV broke down. It also included a GoFundMe campaign that raised $10,000, and complimentary repair work by Friendly Ford in Roselle.

Mayes walked 12 miles to his job after his GMC Yukon with nearly 300,000 miles became disabled. "I was struggling to get a job for a good amount of time," Mayes recounted, "and once I finally got a job, I mean, that was my chance, and I had to keep it. So I had to do whatever I had to do."

Stevens, who with Wendy Snyder cohosts "The Wendy and Ray Show," Saturdays on WLS-AM, is a longtime customer and friend of the Yockey family, owners of Friendly Ford. Jenny Yockey said that when Stevens described the situation, "We immediately said we would take a look at the car and paid to get it towed to us. We had no idea what kind of vehicle was coming or what was wrong with it, we just knew we wanted to help him out."

She said it took about 10 days to complete the multiple repairs — a new battery, new brakes, new starter, four new tires, new shocks, new axle, a new air conditioning system, and more — to get the SUV back on the road. The total cost of repairs exceeded $8,000.

 

Yockey said the work was comped so that the entire $10,000 could be donated to food pantries in Chicago and surrounding suburbs. Mayes’s boss said he was not aware that the 20-year-old had been leaving home at 4 a.m. to reach his job by 7 a.m.