Police officer Mike Kelly of Cleveland is inspiring others with his kindness after paying for a family's groceries out of his own pocket.
The Cleveland, Tennessee, officer was working a security job at Walmart when he noticed a family in the checkout line battling to pay for their food, CBS News reported.
Kelly recognized the father of four so, when the man's card was declined, he stepped in to help by paying for their groceries.
"We're getting extra money to be there and I'm just like are these people going to go hungry when I'm just sitting here making a little extra money for myself?" Kelly said, according to NBC affiliate WRCB-TV.
The act of kindness was witnessed by another shopper who later took to social media to share the heartwarming story in hope of identifying the officer and giving him the thanks that he deserved, CBS noted.
The post was widely shared across Facebook and soon came to the attention of the Cleveland police department, which set about tracking down the officer who was described as "6'5 and buff" in the original post.
"We narrowed it down to our tallest officers and deducted it was School Resource Officer Mike Kelly," the department said in a post on Facebook.
"It is guaranteed that Kelly wouldn't want the credit from this, but it's these random acts of kindness that inspire US ALL to be kind to others!"
While Kelly was happy to help the family, he pointed out that there were many others going hungry.
"We see stuff that we like to forget when some kids are really hungry some kids live in bad situations and it's hard to leave at work sometimes," he said, per WRCB-TV.
Domestic hunger-relief organization, Feeding America, found that in 2016 there were about 41 million people struggling with hunger in the U.S. alone, which included 13 million children.
The report added that, in 2015, there were about 5.4 million seniors struggling to feed themselves.
Facing these statistics, Kelly said he hoped that others would be encouraged to do random acts of kindness.
"Look for somebody to help. There's someone around all the time to help — maybe just food, but maybe something else; maybe just go up and talk to them," he said, according to WRCB-TV.