ATLANTA — It was a life-changing surprise.
Mario Lazo and his daughters, Eden and Monica, stopped by The Ellen Show during her Greatest Night of Giveaways.
We first introduced you to Lazo and his family, along with his late wife’s non-profit, Join the Flock, back in December.
The surprise started with the girl’s being surprised by their favorite artist, Taylor Swift.
“You really question yourself like are we really here. Is this really happening,” Lazo said.
Then the family opened a box.
Inside was a paper with Lazo’s name and the cost of his mortgage.
Their $300,000 mortgage was paid for. Seven months after Lazo’s wife, Jennifer, died from cancer.
“Financially, we were struggling with [the cost of] treatments and having that help was just a huge stress reliever,” said Lazo.
In 2018, she started the non-profit, Join the Flock- not because she wanted to start a charity, but because she wanted to do it in the middle of a four-year battle with breast cancer.
“I need to find a reason why I got cancer. That’s what she said. [God] sent me cancer to help other people. She was always concerned about the purpose of life,” mentioned Lazo.
Jennifer reconnected with two old friends and together they started helping cancer patients with their mortgage for one month.
Jennifer was also a huge fan of Ellen. She sent a letter to the show, hoping to get the charity recognized.
After she passed, Keeli Simpson, co-founder of Join the Flock, decided to write back and eventually heard back from Ellen.
“All of sudden Melissa McCarthy pops out and there’s all of these crazy gifts. It was all this crazy whirlwind that kept getting bigger and bigger,” Simpson explained.
She said since the show the group has been able to pay the mortgage of four more families. They hope to pay mortgage payments for a month for the rest of the year.
“You feel so, so blessed when you’re not expecting someone to help you and they come over and say hey, here,” Lazo said.
“The more people we have behind us, the more people that we are going to help. That’s our main goal,” he stated.
Join the Flock has a couple of events coming up later this year. If you like to donate and follow what they are doing, click here.
MORE HEADLINES