Windsor, Ont. TikTok influencer teams up with Rocket Mortgage to give cash for kindness

A simple act of kindness can go a long way, and a Windsor Ont. woman who stopped to help a stranger can attest to that.

The people behind it are local TikTok creator Zachery Dereniowski and Rocket Mortgage Canada.

Dereniowski is from Windsor and attended Holy Names Catholic High School.

A few years back, the 29-year-old was attending medical school in Australia when he says he got very depressed. He went out looking to connect with others, filming encounters of him hugging it out with strangers and talking about their shared problems.

The videos went viral and the rest is history.

“It went from hugs to flowers to gift cards to money to cars to flights,” Dereniowski said. “That was never the goal. The goal was just to find a friend and make people not feel what I was going through during that time.”

Since then, Dereniowski has filmed and posted hundreds of inspiring videos to TikTok, with an estimated 10 billion views and counting.

“I just make videos for kindness and love so I just feel very fortunate and it feels good to feel good again,” he said. “That's the biggest thing for me. I wasn't happy for the longest time.”

A few weeks back, he teamed up with Rocket Mortgage Canada.

They staged a scenario where Dereniowski was hosting an open house on Windermere Road and needed help hauling furniture inside.

An unsuspecting woman, Lori Desrosier, was in the neighbourhood because her car broke down. As she walked by, she offered to help.

During the video, Desrosier can be heard talking about a bad dog bite from years before that left her with nerve damage in her arm. She also shared with Dereniowski how she went through some tough times and lost her house, to which she said, “Yeah, but you know what, God works in good ways.”

That day, her kindness was paid forward with a $5,000 cheque from Rocket Mortgage with the hope of making home ownership attainable.

“It reminds you that although what we do, maybe its social media, in the case of MD motivator, or maybe mortgages in our case, at the end of the day is really just people helping people,” said Bekim Merdita, the vice president of sales and business development at Rocket Mortgage Canada.

Dereniowski and Desrosier reconnected on Friday to catch up and chat about life since that fateful day.

“I pray for you every day. Every day I do that because I know you're all over different places and that I always pray for you every day that you stay safe,” Desrosier told Dereniowski, noting she didn’t stop to help for the money and what she got out of the interaction was far more valuable.

“I just feel...like the world — everything's been lifted. You know?” she said. “You hear that happening to people but you just never think is going to be you -- and then there it is.”

The video has been viewed more than 30 million times. Desrosier doesn’t want the fame but instead wants others to do the right thing.

“I’ve given and given in my life, I don’t need to receive anything,” she said. “Be kind, do things for others and it obviously comes back to you. One day.”