Strangers Support Dad Facing Kids’ First Christmas Without Their Mom: 'Never Felt So Overwhelmed with Joy'

A neighbor's TikTok video resulted in a wave of kindness and gifts for Donald Wilson, a single father

This year three young children from Detroit are facing their first Christmas without their mom, but they're going to discover the true meaning of the season thanks to the kindness of strangers.

“This is something that happens in a movie, not in real life,” the children's father, Donald Wilson, tells PEOPLE.

The last thing Wilson has had time to think about these last few months is Christmas. The 33-year-old became a single dad to kids Donald Jr., 5, Poetry, 4 and Honesty, 1 in August after his ex, Lakenya Wilbourn, 39, died of a stroke. Although they were no longer together, the two had an amicable co-parenting relationship.

“It was more day-to-day survival,” Wilson says. “I didn’t have any money, I went to emergency food pantries... It was a lot.”

As Wilson was struggling, the holiday spirit of his downstairs duplex neighbor — Colin McConnell, a 48-year-old TikTok producer — went into overdrive.

The two were not friends. They were strangers who happened to live next to each other since Wilson, who worked nights, moved in this past March.

But McConnell had noticed that the three young children who normally came on weekends were now living in the apartment full-time. One day he watched Wilson walking up to his second-floor duplex in overwhelming sadness and had to ask how he was doing.

Wilson, who says he normally keeps his feelings locked up, poured his heart out to McConnell.

"I think he just felt so alone," McConnell says.

Wilson and Wilbourn met at Motor City Casino where they both worked. Wilson, who lost his own father when he was just 3 and was raised by a single mom with an addiction problem, had worked his way up to become a prep cook.

After escaping a troubled youth, he wanted to make a good life for his kids, which includes three other older children he has from a previous relationship.  After Wilbourn’s death, he says he felt defeated and was losing faith.

“I was like, 'Donald, ain’t nobody going to help you. Shut your crying up. Just get it done,'” Wilson says, choking up. “I don’t have any room for happiness. I don’t have room for sadness, excitement. Just make sure these kids are OK.”

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After Wilbourn's death, he had to take time off from work to sort his affairs and to deal with his grief. At the time, he had only a small amount of money coming in from short-term disability. Wilson was struggling, and he had no support system from his family to help feed and clothe the children.

It was at this point McConnell suggested appealing to his followers on TikTok. The small cadre had helped him out at other times, including organizing a bike trek to fundraise for charity, which resulted in McConnell being featured in the November 2021 PEOPLE Kindness issue.

McConnell expected maybe 100 responses from his November post, which linked to an Amazon wish list for the family. Instead, there was a global outpouring of gifts including toys, clothes, food, gift cards and cash. When he showed Wilson the bounty, Wilson says it felt like having butterflies all over him, a nervous feeling that hit his entire body.

“I’ve never felt so overwhelmed with joy. I never really felt joy, and if this is what it feels like, I want everybody to experience it,” Wilson says. “I guarantee you, you are going to feel it in your body and your body language. And you are going to want to give it back to others.”

As much as the gifts and food have meant to Wilson and his family, it’s just the acknowledgement that there are people out there who actually care what happens to him and his family that means the most.

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“I got a card from a woman in Texas that said ‘Howdy partner. Merry Christmas. You got this. You are the big dad.' Those cards were so uplifting,” Wilson says. “I read some of them with my 13-year-old son and we just laughed and hung them around, put them on the ledge and used them to decorate the Christmas tree.”

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Wilson wants more people to experience what he did. And not just at the holidays.

“It gave me confidence, ideas, inspiration and motivation to do these things for others,” Wilson says. “This has given me so much compassion within myself. Sometimes it's just random acts that can change lives.”

If you want to watch the Wilson Family Christmas live event on TikTok at 4 p.m. ET, go to Colin's account to register, or you can watch it on his page after 7 p.m. Christmas Day, Dec. 25.

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