TORONTO – On Monday morning, Kerstin Gonzalez’s car wouldn’t start.
By Monday evening, she was driving a brand-new 2015 Kia Sorrento – courtesy of NBA star Russell Westbrook, the car’s former owner.
The Oklahoma City Thunder point guard was named Most Valuable Player at the 2015 NBA All-Star game after a phenomenal 41-point performance.
For his efforts, Westbrook was awarded the Kia SUV, which he decided to give to a deserving candidate in the Oklahoma City area.
So he reached out to Sunbeam Family Services, an organization dedicated to helping “the working poor” in the Oklahoma City area, including single parents, the elderly, and the disabled, with programs such as counseling, early childhood education, foster care, and more.
Sunbeam selected 19-year-old Kerstin Gonzalez — a single mother of two trying to put herself through school while providing for her two children, four-year-old Matthew and two-year-old Adam.
“It means so much to all of us at Sunbeam to be able to give above and being for our clients,” Erin Engelke, Sunbeam’s Chief External Relations Officer, told the Oklahoma City Thunder website. “For her to have one less thing to worry about, by way of a car, is huge.”
Kerstin became pregnant when she was just 14 years old, and had been working with Sunbeam for many years to help provide for her children while she finished her high school education, got a job, and looked to apply to college to study forensic science.
“She has such a good heart,” said Engelke. “She’s so worthy and so humble. She did not see this coming. We had orchestrated it so that it could be a true surprise and it was for her.”
On Monday morning, Gonzalez and her two boys stopped into Sunbeam for a quick visit when they were surprised by Westbrook – and the gift he was about to give them.
“Are they playing a prank on me or something?” Gonzalez said. “When he showed me the keys, I was like ‘this is real?’ That’s when I started to cry because it’s been such a hard time.”
Gonzalez broke down in tears as Westbrook handed her the keys and told her the car was hers. In addition, he’d take care of the registration as well as the first year of insurance.
“There were definitely tears of joy and I could tell some tears of hard work and all the different things she’s been through in her life,” Westbrook said. “Today was a stepping stone in showing her that everything is going to be alright.”
The multiple-time NBA all-star spent the rest of the morning playing with Gonzanez’s children, while she marveled at his and Sunbeam’s generosity.
“He was a gentleman,” Gonzalez said of Westbrook. “He was amazing, he was sweet and so attentive to what I had to say. He’s a really awesome person.”
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