- All right, y'all, my next guest flat out represent
the best in humanity.
When they noticed a homeless man outside of their building,
they didn't ignore him, as often we do,
they didn't get nervous, they befriended him.
And then they went further, way further,
and they helped reunite him
with his family who he hadn't seen in two decades.
That's why they are today's rad humans.
(upbeat rock music)
(giggles) The ending is my favorite.
Please welcome Randy and John, y'all!
Well thank y'all for coming.
- Thank you!
- Yes, I'm so glad we can see each other
in person in your pod,
so you can sit next to each other, right?
Hadn't had anyone sit next to each other yet,
so this is awesome.
So, Randy, I'll start with you.
You're the first one who noticed Pedro, right?
- Yeah.
So we live in Hollywood and as you know, you're in LA,
the homeless crisis is out of control.
So I've kind of made a point to make sure
that I acknowledge people and say hello
and Pedro would say, "Good morning",
"Good evening", whatever, when I was walking my dog,
but this one night I went down
and I heard him just thinking out loud.
And I was just standing near him.
And he was saying, "I'm a human, look at me,
talk to me, don't just stare at me.
Don't laugh at me.
You'll see I'm an educated man if you talk to me."
And it just hit me and I was like,
it just broke my heart truly.
So I ran upstairs to John and I run a charity
during the holidays called Project Backpacks where we hand
out backpacks full of essentials to homeless.
And I said to him, I was like, "There's a guy outside.
I need to go talk to him and I wanna bring
him backpacks, so can you go down with me?"
So we did.
So we went down and started talking to him.
- Well, I mean, what stood out immediately was truly
how intelligent this guy was and kind and gentle.
And like Randy said,
we just wanted to just talk to him, give him a little time.
And one thing he pointed out was how tired he was.
He said he'd been on those streets for eight years.
And in that time hadn't been able to go to sleep.
I mean, the ground is hard.
The air gets cold.
It's loud. - You're nervous,
you're living outside, yeah.
- Absolutely.
And he said,
"If I ever let my guard down, people take things from me."
So he was saying, "I'm trying to hold on.
I'm trying to get through this.
I'm trying to be strong.
I'm just so tired."
- Yeah, so we said, "What can we do
for you that truly would help you?
Like, what would change your life?
Like what could we do?"
And he's like, "There's really nothing you can do.
All I really would want was to be reconnected
with my family cause I haven't seen them in 20 years."
And I'm like, okay, I'm on it.
Like the light bulb goes off.
So I took out my phone and I was like,
just give me any details that you have about your family.
Like, do you remember where your parents were born?
What are your parents' names?
Any details you could give us?
So we started taking notes
and then we like ran upstairs and got on Ancestry.com.
Every type of record finder you could be on
and just started searching as hard as we could.
- The next morning, I just kind of started going
down the list, making wrong phone calls,
calling numbers that had been disconnected.
A number called me back that hadn't answered
when I called and said, "Hey, I missed a call from you.
I don't know you, was this a butt dial?"
And so "I'm glad you called back.
Okay, so I'm trying to help a guy find his family.
It's probably the wrong number.
Let me just describe him to you.
And if anything rings a bell, great.
If not, I'll leave you alone."
So I described Pedro and she said,
"One of those names might ring a bell.
Do you mind if I pass your number on?"
I said, "Please do."
And almost immediately my phone rang again
with a gentleman's voice.
He said his name was Pierre.
And he said, "I'm calling about the man
outside your building."
I said, "Okay, well, I don't want to jump to conclusions.
Let me describe him to you.
Maybe he's your nephew."
And so I started describing Pedro and when I was talking
about how intelligent he is, Pierre goes, "That's him.
That's 100%."
He goes, "Oh my God, that's my nephew."
He goes, "John, we've been looking for him for 20 years.
Praying every day, every year on his birthday."
They all get online and look for him.
He like, "I can't believe it.
What do we do now?"
You know, like, "Well, he's here in Hollywood."
- Wow. So what happened next, Randy?
- So the night before,
when we just planned on getting him a hotel room,
I posted on social media and I was like,
you know, "We met this guy.
Just wanna get him a couple nights sleep.
If anybody wants to chip in any money, that would be great.
Like no pressure."
And then woke up the next morning
to already $3,000 had been raised-
- Ah, I will cry right now.
- [Randy] I'm like preparing myself.
- That's so nice.
- Yeah, so we had $3,000 just to get him in a hotel.
And then I posted an update and said,
"We found his family."
You're gonna take over soon.
I say, "We found his family."
- Wow!
So, I mean, how has Pedro doing today?
Do y'all keep in contact?
Do you ever talk to him?
- Yeah. - Daily.
- Oh my gosh.
- He's amazing.
He is.
He's in Atlanta now with his family.
- I am on the verge,
please don't cry. - I'm sorry,
I'm trying not to. - I'm on the verge
of a waterfall, just, ugh.
- He actually just told us that he's enrolling in college.
- Wow! - To become a counselor
and motivational speaker.
- What an amazing, like after two decades.
- Yeah, I can't even imagine.
- I can't either.
It sounds like a movie.
- Yeah.
- Well, before we go any further,
I wanna bring Pedro into the conversation.
So Pedro, how are you doing?
- [Randy] Hi!
- Hello Ms. Clarkson.
It's an honor to meet you.
- Oh my gosh, no, and I just love that you
said Ms. Clarkson, I'm lookin' all Texan,
that was very southern of you.
I'm into all of it.
So Pedro, take us back to what your life was like
before you met Randy and John, obviously very difficult.
- Well, it's kind of ironic being homeless and blocks away
from the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Hollywood sign,
Sunset Boulevard, and millions of people come
to that area every year to walk around and see it.
But there is a underrepresented demographic
of people that's there,
a homeless population
that people really don't even see.
And people have a tendency to believe
that everybody's homeless that's illiterate,
drug addicts, alcoholics.
I'm not saying that that's not the case per se,
but there are some intelligent individuals out
there that is homeless as well.
That just need an opportunity, that needs someone to care,
such as John and Randy cared for me.
And I can't even express, I mean,
the thankfulness that I have for the both of them.
- Yeah, I mean, what you said, it's so poignant
because I mean, even myself, like my family,
we grew up and hard times hit, situations happen
to where we had nothing.
Like if we hadn't had our church
and our people coming together, our community helping us,
like whether it was with clothes, whether it was food,
whether with just, you know, listening, you're right.
They have this preconceived notion
of how people end up where they are.
And well, you know what happens when you assume, so.
But Pedro, I mean, what an amazing testimony you have
now too, to help others.
So not long ago, Randy and John befriended, Pedro,
who lived on the streets right outside their apartment.
What started out as an offer to put him up in a hotel
grew into so much more, life-changing more,
they helped reunite him with his family, who he hadn't seen
in 20 years, that makes them totally rad humans.
And we love celebrating rad humans on this show.
Pedro's now back in Atlanta, living with his aunt Barbara
and his cousin Mia, who are joining us now online.
Hi Mia, hi Barbara,
how y'all doin'? - Hi, Kelly!
- [Randy] Hi!
- Hi, Kelly!
- Oh my gosh.
So tell us what you felt when you heard
about Pedro from Randy and John.
Like, that had to feel nuts.
- Well, I could not believe that we found him.
So it was the most exciting thing you can think of.
I got the call from my uncle Pierre to say,
"Hey man, we found Pedro."
I was like, where?
And I'm going.
- Aww, I love that.
So, I mean, Pedro, what was going
through your mind when you first saw your family again?
There had to be so many different emotions going on.
- Well, to say so many emotions, that kind of minimizes it.
When we initially arrived at the hotel,
John was driving,
Randy was in the front seat.
I was in the back seat.
So when we pulled up into the hotel, I got out of the car.
And when I stood up, my uncle was walking out
of the hotel room and he walked past the pillar
and he double taked to look back and we met eyes
and I just, initially it was kind of scary
because I was gone for so long.
And our minds is one of the strongest tools that we have
and we have a tendency to play tricks with ourselves.
So I kind of belittled myself more
so that I've been out here so long.
I don't know if I'll be accepted.
If they still love me,
what is my appearance or anything like that.
But family love is unconditional.
And I found that out,
that no matter how I looked or what my possessions were,
that they loved me unconditionally.
And when we first met,
we just started to cry and I looked around
and John and Randy were at the car crying too.
So it was like, I stated earlier,
the people on Highland Avenue probably were driving by
and looking like, what's going on with these
people over here?
So it was an emotional reunion to say the least.
- That's so, so beautiful.
So Aunt Barbara, what was it like when you saw Pedro again?
- You know, I just don't have words for it.
I used to take care of him when he was a baby
and it felt so good.
I just couldn't wait to see him.
I just couldn't wait.
- And you were there too, right, guys?
You were there when all that happened?
So it was pretty emotional, right?
- You think I'm gonna ugly cry on the show?
In person, it was, yeah, no,
we literally, when we pulled up, like he said,
he was in the back seat
and I could tell that he like locked eyes.
They were still checking in
in the little glass room in the front.
And I was like, John don't even park the car.
Let's go.
And so we literally abandoned the car
in the middle of the driveway and just like ran out.
And then, I mean,
when he first saw his uncle Pierre, it was just
like an embrace that it felt like it lasted three minutes.
I don't know if I'm dramatic.
I don't think I was.
And I just, I mean, I'm crying, John's crying.
He's not gonna admit it, but John's crying.
And then we see Mia was still checking it.
And then she turns around
and sees him and like comes and jumps on him.
And it was like, you could see in that moment
that even though 20 years had passed, like that was it.
That was love.
It was just like-
- True perspective.
- And just the most magical moment to see
and just to see him after, like I said, like seeing him then
versus the first day we saw him, he was like a new person.
And like watching him actually take in
that his life was about to change was just,
literally the most incredible.
- I mean, it reminds me,
I loved singing "Amazing Grace" in church when I was a kid
it reminds me, I was once lost and then found,
I mean, what a visual.
I mean, I think I sang those words so often as a kid
and never really even visited the true impact of that
until seeing that picture and hearing y'alls story.
So Pedro, tell us what your life is like now.
- Well, I relocated to Atlanta a couple of weeks ago
and to be reacclimated into society
after being in somewhat of a underserved demographic,
so to speak, and like I said,
people minimize the normalcies of life
and being on the streets for so long,
just simple things like going to the refrigerator
and taking a shower and sleeping in a bed.
I mean, those are things that society takes for granted.
And like Randy mentioned earlier,
I have a passion that I'm currently enrolling
in Georgia State so I could pursue my psychology degree
so I could give back to people.
So I could become a counselor
so I can help those (applause)
that may be in a situation where I was,
or may be headed into that situation,
that I could give them something
that could thwart that, and may be able to help someone.
And hopefully there are more Johns and Randy's out
there that could see someone
and that may be able to help them
and give them an opportunity.
I'm not saying that everyone be fits that, but there are,
because even diamonds, diamonds are a dug up out of mud.
So with that being said,
that some of the most beautiful things that this earth
cherishes, they come from mud, they come out of dirty soil.
So I was that diamond in the rough
and John or Randy found me.
And so hopefully someone else
can get that opportunity as well.
- You're right, that diamond in the rough story,
it's beautiful.
- Thank you. - It's an incredible thing.