@miklo_98 Buying all the paletas from the ##PaletaMan so he can go home and relax on Father’s Day 🥺 ##vivalaraza ##MakeSomeoneSmile ##essential
♬ Baraja de Oro - Chalino Sánchez
Rosario Del
Real, 70 years old, is a former carpenter. Now he makes a living selling $2
Mexican-style ice pops, or paletas, in a variety of flavors, including
pineapple, strawberry, watermelon and cinnamon. He usually pushes his bright
yellow cart along the streets in Chicago’s Southeast Side.
Last month,
Cynthia Gonzalez and Michaelangelo Mosqueda were enjoying a cookout with their
family in the 30-degree heat when Del Real came by and asked if anyone wanted
to buy a paleta.
Cynthia, Michaelangelo
and several other family members, decided they could do better than buy just
one pop apiece. They opened their wallets and bought every paleta in Del Real’s
cart — 65 of them, at a cost of $130. Then they recorded a video of Del Real’s
joyful reaction and posted it on TikTok.
The post
quickly racked up more than 5 million views, prompting the Gonzalez family to set up a GoFundMe for Del Real in the hope of helping him
retire. So far, the effort has raised more than $62,000, and tens of thousands
of people have left comments.
“The paleta
man was KING to us kids in Chicago!!!!” wrote one woman. “Miss those days.
Bless you guys!”
“It’s heartbreaking
that he has to work at this age. I’m so glad you did this for him,” wrote
another.
“This made
my heart fill up with so much happiness! I cried tears of joy to see his humble
reaction,” added a woman in her 20s. “So proud of you for doing this.”
The
Gonzalez family bought all of Del Real’s paletas so he could go home and relax
on a hot day.
“My
grandfather retired last year, and to see Don Rosario out there pushing the
cart day in and day out, we just felt like we needed to do something to help
him,” Michaelangelo said.
“The money
raised will hopefully allow him to stop working in the heat,” he said. “I plan to
withdraw the money and personally deliver it to him.”
“Our local paletero is the sweetest, most
polite person ever,” Cynthia Gonzalez said. “We didn’t want him to be working
on such a hot day anymore.”
As she and
the others bought all of the ice pops in his cart, Del Real started crying, she
said.
“You could
see the relief in his face,” Gonzalez said. “He gave me the warmest hug when he
was thanking us. We offered him some food and something to drink, and he left
with the biggest smile on his face.”
At a time
when Chicago is dealing with the pandemic, Gonzalez said the “coming
together” of thousands of strangers to help a neighborhood paleta man is moving.
“I can’t
wait to see Rosario’s reaction when we surprise him with the money,” she said. “He deserves this and more.”
