“I teach refugees [English] and every week this student brings in food for the whole class,” Shrea Kumar, a volunteer teacher at Community Refugee and Immigration Services (CRIS) in Ohio, captioned her now-viral TikTok video.
That student is a 69-year-old Syrian refugee named Hazaa Alabdullah.
The video shows Alabdullah handing out sandwiches, chips, vegetables and more to other students in his class on separate occasions.
In comments sections, viewers praise Alabdullah for his generosity.
“The biggest hearts,” wrote one person. “People from other countries understand the meaning of community.”
“Immigrants are the most American people you will ever meet,” wrote another. “Because they still believe in the original dream.”
“Learning English but fluent in community ❤️,” wrote one more.
“I’ve been crying over this video for about five minutes now,” TikToker @sundries.snark says in a Stitched video, adding that it made her “ugly cry.”
“I do fundamentally feel like people are good, but I feel like a lot of people have allowed billionaires to convince them that their neighbor was stealing from them,” she continues. “That’s simply not the case.”
People who know Alabdullah agree with that sentiment completely.
“He really helps all the students start talking more and interacts with them,” Zin Min, Alabdullah’s teacher at CRIS Ohio, tells TODAY.com. “He makes the class lively and fun, and the class wouldn’t be the same without him.”
Kumar thinks the reason the video went to viral is because “it shows how good humanity can be,” she tells TODAY.com, adding that Alabdullah lifts the spirits of other students in his class, who hail from countries like Eritrea, Somalia and Lebanon. “It makes me feel so good because CRIS is actually losing funding.”
(In January, a Trump administration executive order froze federal funding for refugee resettlement, which has led to uncertainty among organizations like CRIS.)
Alabdullah, who emigrated to Ohio four years ago with his wife and four of his six children, says serving others like his classmates is just part of who he is.
“This is my home,” Alabdullah tells TODAY.com over Zoom. “We are one family. When I bring something, in my heart, I’m very happy.”
As Alabdullah speaks, there’s an American flag hanging behind him. Min says he bought it for July Fourth, along with fresh fruit and vegetable for the class.
Sharing a story about being a 13-year-old boy in Syria, Alabdullah says he’s come full circle now that he’s in the U.S.
“Neil Armstrong stood on the moon, you remember?” he asks, adding that he listened to the 1969 broadcast over a radio in his village. Wanting to see a picture of the history-making moment, he searched around town for weeks. Six months later, he got to view a black-and-white image of Armstrong landing on the moon.
“Now, I’m here in Ohio, I go visit his museum,” Alabdullah says of his trip to the Armstrong Air & Space Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio. “I took a picture together with Armstrong. This is my dream.”
