The Current - Jimmy Darts on the power of kindness

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

Jimmy Darts has become a social media star through his kindness videos. He has over 12 million followers and 400 million likes, just on his TikTok account. Through his account, he gives and raises thousands of dollars for strangers. We talk to him about his work, and his new book Undercover Kindness.

This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always over-delivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors, all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough. Defined by our uphill battle and always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing.

Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Do you have anything for headaches set off? I do. How much is it? $10.00. You need it? Yeah, I have like a quarter is all they have with me.

For headaches? Yes. Oh, perfect. How much for the... You sure? Thank you. And I was actually just seeing the first person to help me. I have $500 for y'all.

Yeah. Yeah. You guys are amazing. This is for you. I'm serious. You serious? Yeah. He said, I'm kindness. My God, thank you. As Jimmy Darts doing what he loves to do.

Through his social media and kindness videos, he raises and gives away money to strangers. Could I please pay for everything? I don't know. It's way too much. Yeah, no, I would love to. How many kids you got? Holy buckets. Thank you so much.

Yeah, you're welcome. I got $711 for you. Me? Yeah. There you go, bro. You work here, too? Yeah. There you go, bro.

What? Yeah. What? Seven hundred love for you. What? Oh, baby. You're welcome. Tell love for you.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you. You're welcome. Oh, he's getting rowdy. That's a birthday, man. That's my blessing. Oh, baby. Look at that.

Oh, baby. You're amazing. Thank you. Jimmy has more than 12 million followers just on his TikTok account alone. His new book is undercover kindness, saying yes to love, no to fear, and embracing the life-changing power of ordinary generosity. Jimmy, good morning. Good morning. Thanks so much for having me. It's a real honor to be on here today. Well, it's great to have you. And I just love, as I listen to those videos,

the joy and the excitement that you bring to people. Tell me, tell me what's that like. Yeah, I mean, like you were saying earlier in the show, you know, you don't want to get sick of those Christmas songs playing it over and over, but I think the Christmas spirit's contagious. And so that's what I say, man. I say every day if we could celebrate Christmas, why not? And so try to go around. And, man, there's just so many incredible people that are really going through it. And, you know, the book is all about the power of ordinary generosity because that's what you see in these videos. It's these people giving $2, a couple of quarters, $5.00. but they have so little, and it's so powerful because it's not the amount, right? It's the heart posture they're giving from, and it's so cool. They have no idea that they're going to get a reward or anything's going to happen. They're giving out of their lack, and then before you know it, you know, we're usually able to raise a couple hundred thousand dollars, sometimes more than that for these people. And so it's just a real honor to do this and to really highlight them. That's why if you see my videos, you probably recognize my voice, but on my face because I'm,

I mean, maybe 0.1% of the videos, it's all about them. And they're really the undercover heroes, you know. It's like, man, I would love to shake, you know, Tom Brady's hand and some celebrities. That'd be great. But I'd way rather shake a mom's hand who's going through it, a single mom and is willing and able to give her last couple dollars just out of the kindness of her heart. To me, that's a real hero. Yeah, tell us, for our listeners who maybe haven't seen your kindness videos, bring them into the tent. give us an example of one to understand the concept yeah absolutely so i basically will go up to people

with a different ask i'll say hey i need a couple dollars for gas i'm stuck at this gas station or could you help me get this baby formula or whatever the ask is it's usually a simple ask and these strangers you know um will will say you know i only highlight the people that say yes so when people say no those videos we don't post we bless those people and and it's fully understandable why they wouldn't help because they're in a tough spot. But the people that do help in the midst of their struggle, that's when I say, actually, I'm not homeless. I didn't need your help. We were seeing the first kind person to help today. You can have your $2 back and here's $500 for your kindness. And that's when they're just so blown away, so knocked off their rocker that they begin to

open up, share their stories and really just weep under what's happening. And from that, I'll post that video on TikTok, Instagram, everywhere, and then we'll make a GoFundMe. And whatever their need is, it could be that, or their husband is, you know, battling cancer and he was the main breadwinner. And now the wife is scared they're going to get evicted or it's a family. And the child just last week had cerebral palsy and they can't afford to get a wheelchair accessible van and all this stuff. And so we had just raised you over $280,000 for this kid. And we, and we're able to surprise him with a wheelchair accessible van last week. So that's really the heartbeat of these videos. It's to show the amazing undercover heroes I like to say. You know, the videos are

very public, but the people themselves that get spotlighted. Nobody knows their name. Nobody knows where they're from, where they're from. And I think that's the real power of it. And give me the eye, give us an idea of just how far and wide these videos go. How many views do these videos get? Yeah, I mean, we've gotten, yeah, billions of views. We were in, my book just came out and GoFundMe reached out to us the other day. And they said, you're actually the number one fundraiser for others in GoFundMe history. So we've raised several millions of dollars.

All together in all platforms, we probably got about 25 million followers. But the coolest thing about it is it starts with their $2. Then it goes to all bless them with $500. But the coolest thing is the viewers, the people at home that watch, all they do is give 50 cents, $2 here or there, and that's what makes up these GoFundMe.

So it's really just this group effort, and it's such an honor for me to just be a part of it, really. Like, I don't feel like, you know, the person you should be interviewing right now, to be quite frank with you, I feel like you should be interviewing the people that, you know, are these people that gave their last few dollars to me. That's way cooler than what I do. I get to facilitate the interaction, but the people themselves are just the coolest people ever, and it's just an honor to meet them. Your journey to kindness, if I can put it that way, really seems to be. to start when you were 10 years old and you write about this in your book. Tell us about that and what your parents did with you. Yeah, absolutely. So 10 years old, it was a Christmas a little different

than normal. Usually, you know, there's a bunch of presents under the tree. But for this Christmas, they said, we're giving you cash instead. So I was jumping up and down, like doing backflips off the coach. And then my dad goes, settle down, settle down. There's a catch. Half of it, you got to give away to a stranger. And I was like, what half of it? I got to give away to a stranger. Like, Maybe I could at least give it to my cousin and then we could, you know, enjoy the gift together, but a stranger. And it was $200 my parents gave me. So I had to give $100 to a stranger. And that Christmas in Minneapolis, Minnesota, there was this homeless gentleman outside just freezing, you know, his face off. And I told my mom, I said, stop the car. I want to give it to him. And this guy had been used to just getting, you know, middle fingers thrown at him change and curse words, you know. And so it's one thing for an adult to give him a couple bucks, but a little kid running up to him and handing him a crisp $100 bill just the look on his face being like, man, I can get somewhere to stay tonight. I can get a meal. I'll never forget the look on his face. And, you know, that really did something to me as a kid because looking back at it, I have no idea what I spent that other $100 on for myself.

Really? You know, so. You don't remember what you did. Yeah, no clue. No clue. You know, these moments will hit you. You know, if you hear someone else talk about it. about giving. You might clap your hands, say, oh, that's cool. But I'm telling you, for the people listening, you know, if you really would just go out and at a Starbucks this week or tomorrow, the person behind you just say, hey, I know this is a little random, but for the holidays, just want to spread kindness. I'd love to buy your drink. Or I'd love to fill up your gas tank. You know, whatever thing you do like that, they'll be so blown away that it will really impact their life because it sounds like such a simple thing. But when's the last time that happened to you? You probably can never even think of a circumstance like that.

You know, so I just want to encourage people that, man, it's so doable. And we don't need a way for someone else to change the world. We can do it ourselves. Well, I got to tell you, my car broke down this week. And then I was ordering an Uber, and I was late for work, and I was stuck in traffic, and I was missing a meeting, and I was really uptight. And the Uber driver could hear this, and he reaches into a cooler in the front seat enhance me a bottle of water and says, please have this complimentary bottle of water. And my mood

changed in a heartbeat. And I looked at him. I said, thank you. And I thought of it. I said, it's just a bottle of water. But it was that act of kindness and generosity. I didn't ask for anything. He just offered it. And I agree with you. And I do think that kindness ultimately is contagious. That's incredible. I mean, yeah, in a bottle of water for an Uber driver, you know, it's like 20% of the fare of the ride, you know, so just something so simple like that man so beautiful it's the little it's the little things and yeah you're tick to this ascent isn't for everyone you need grit to climb this high this often you've got to be an underdog that always over delivers you've got to be six thousand five hundred hospital staff

one thousand doctors all doing so much with so little you've got to be scarborough defined by our uphill battle in always striving towards new heights. And you can help us keep climbing. Donate at lovescarborough.ca. Hi, Steve Patterson here, host of the debaters, Canada's comedy competition judged by live audience applause. This week's episode asks if children are smarter than their parents. So tune in to find out who wears the smarty pants in their families wherever you get your podcasts. Park story, kick started. When you packed your bags and you went to Arizona and you buy a broom

from a man named Sebastian. Let's take a listen. Hello, sir. Hello, how are you? Good, how are you doing today? Oh, good, good. How much for the brooms? I got one for six or two for ten bucks.

They're pretty good brooms? You know, I start sleeping, the floor moves dark. I'm done sleeping, it's too dark. Right, right. Do you think you'd be able to do one for five? One for five? Yeah, all the got is five on me right now. Yeah, man.

Really? Tell me about Sebastian and what happened after this video. Yeah. So one night I was just scrolling through TikTok and I saw a news story about this man, Sebastian, who was a blind broom salesman in Arizona in the Phoenix area there. And so I was like, man, I got to go and try to do a video and help this guy out. And so I flew to Arizona and there he is, sure enough, on his corner spot selling brooms. And I had heard that he had been going through a lot that people had been stealing his stuff, vandalizing it, taking advantage of him because he's blind, all these. different things. I think his wife was battling cancer at the time. There was just a lot going on. And so I went there. His brooms were like seven bucks. And I said, man, let me just see if he'll give me one for five. And sure enough, he does. So I surprised him with cash. I said, man, I want to give you this, you know, $500, this thousand dollars for being so amazing. Here you go. And he's so blown away, you know, he just, he just moved to tears. And I said, what's your dream? And he goes,

well my dream would be to be a car salesman but no place will hire me as soon as they realize I'm blind they're not going to waste their time with me and so I went home that night and I was just like man to the at the hotel room I was like man nothing's nothing's impossible with God we can do all things I said I'm going to upload this video see if we can raise some money for him and see if we can change his life and sure enough well over $100,000 came in over a day I go back to the spot to meet up with him and I post on my Instagram story what time I'm going to be there news crews were there hundreds of people were there lined up with signs saying go Sebastian we all got in a line bought all his brooms he got sold all of his stuff told him about the over $100,000 raise for him

he was just absolutely blown away by the pressure that was going to take off of him and his wife and then I said I got one more surprise for you and there was a local car dealership that saw the story was so moved by it and they gave him a job as a car dealer in his first month I think he sold over five cars and in the book it talks about he's the first ever blind car salesman in the state of Arizona that's it's an incredible story and and I guess that that's what I wonder is is the impact in that moment I can see that it's making a you know a huge impact obviously when you pull out a thousand bucks or whatever it may be but what do you know about the longer term impact that that some of your your your videos have

brought how they've changed people do you do you have any idea Months later, the things are still going? Yeah, it's crazy. I just heard a couple days ago, my parents live in Minnesota. I'm out here in California. And there was this guy that I went to high school with who was working in Minnesota. I forget what job he does. I think he does roofing for houses or something like that.

And he was doing roofing. And there was this Hispanic gentleman there that was talking to him. And he goes, man, do you know, do you know Jimmy Darts? he's from Minnesota and this kid looks at him and goes yeah I know who he is I went to high school with him and he goes you won't believe it man he helped my my brother out and saved his life he would he would have been dead without what he did for him and so that's all I heard from it you know I didn't hear more because it was just it was a story through a friend that got back to me but I was just like looking at my wife I was like that is crazy I mean who knows what

story that was who's brother that was you know like we maybe raised some money for someone or prayed someone, shared the love of Jesus with them, but we have no clue these things. And so that's what's so powerful is just that 99% of the fruit from our lives will never know until eternity. That one percent we do hear about is super encouraging. But I think it's good to not know everything. That way we don't get too big in our heads and stuff. But yeah, there's just been so much amazing fruit from it. Just Jeff has been a great friend of mine. He was homeless working at sprouts. year, and I went in there, did a video we raised over like $150,000 for him. He's now as a home to

live in. He's got a new truck. He's still working great, doing great. So a lot of these people, they're just one reach of someone's arm pulling them up out of the hole they're in, and they can do the rest of the running. You know, I always like to say, you know, what I do, it's the opposite of kind of the lottery. You know, the lottery is famous for people not stewarding things well. But I say that's because the blessing fell on the foundation of greed, where in these videos, the people that get the $100,000 from a go-fummy or whatever it may be, it falls on the foundation of generosity, and that's how they were able to receive this gift. So the foundation of greed and generosity are polar opposites. And so that's why I really believe the stewardship rate is just so much higher, and it's just really cool to see. But do you have any concerns at any point that you may be exploiting people when they're at their lowest?

You know, there's some comments criticizing you for recording and posting videos of the people that you give money to. What do you say about that? I would just say that, yeah, you know, we can't raise the money for the person without the video, you know. And the video, really the people that are in them want them posted more than anyone because they're like, man, you know, I had no idea you were filming. But this is this is the most heroic coolest moment I've ever looked in my life, you know what I mean? And so we're not just hearing their sob stories and then posting it on the internet. It's really these heroic moments of when they reach in their pocket and through the midst of their battle, they choose to give. And so the comments, if you read them, it's 99.999% of, oh, my goodness, I want to be like him.

I need to meet him one day. Not talking about me, talking about the individual that gives, you know. So they're always more than, more than stoked to know that they're the hero now in their local town. And then, you know, when the blessing comes in of whatever it is, a wheelchair accessible vehicle or money so they don't get evicted of their home, you know, they're just absolutely loving it. But I think that anytime you do anything and if people are criticizing it, I think that's a good sign to keep moving in that direction because if you're doing something and no one's saying anything about it, you know, then you're probably not doing something too impactful. So I would just say, you know, press on, go with your heart, you know. obviously love people have that be the motive of your hearts you know you could you could do the right thing with the wrong motive or you could do the wrong thing with the right motive you know so i always

just try to stay foundational in what i do that yeah i get to bless people and do this but it really starts in the morning with just spending time on my knees with jesus and getting my heart right before him and just saying god just highlight lead me to the right person today i want to love them i want them to know how special they are and help me tell their story in a beautiful way that doesn't expose them but really you know shines light on how incredible their character is so i think just having jesus says that the source of it really helps me uh keep at the motives and everything pure the the your videos also highlight need i mean the incredible need that is out there um across the the cities and towns that you visit what impact is that need when you see it

first hand to have on you yeah it's absolutely wild i mean almost everyone you talk to is going through something i mean all different degrees you know there's always someone going through something worse than you are and there's always someone going through something better than you are but but the truth is if you'll go out and talk to people you'll be blown away at what they're going through and how strong and resilient these people are you know half the stuff they go through if i was going through it i can't imagine getting out from under the covers in my house, you know, I would just be, you know, feel so broken down, you know, I mean, so it's just so impressive that these people are able to go out, have a smile at their jobs. But behind that smile, if you take time to

really talk to them, they'll open up. And like I said, you know, you might not always have $500 to bless someone with, but just offering them a prayer. Just, hey, you know, I really know what you're going through as hard. Is it all right? If I just pray for you for a second or, you know, here's a couple dollars. Get yourself a coffee after work and you'll be so it'll be it'll be amazing at how you can really help these people because yeah everywhere Canada Australia America any country you go to I lived in India the need there is crazy so I think we just got to take time and talk to the people around us and and I think that's what we were created to do and this is the kind of time of year where we all think about kindness and we think

about generosity and charity so so just leave us with this thought like for you what is the power of kindness. Yeah, so I would just say the power of kindness is really just, you know, blessing someone when they can't bless you back. There's nothing they can do for you. Like I said, you know, I was like, man, can I give my Christmas gift to my cousin? And my dad's like, no, it's got to be a stranger. And so I think real kindness at its purest form is when we go out and bless someone that has nothing they can offer us back. And it's really just a one-sided interaction. And you'll get blessed in the process of doing that. Because it's, It's way more blessed to give than receive, but I think really finding those people out there, this holiday season, you're driving to work or wherever you may be.

We all have a sphere of influence. You know, we all have five people in our lives that all never meet your five people. You'll never meet my five people. So just steward who God puts in front of you and try to love on those people. And it doesn't need to be some big grand act. It's really the motive behind your intention is the most important thing. Jimmy, keep spreading that kindness. Absolutely. I'll do it until my last breath. It's Christmas every day.

Yeah. Well, Merry Christmas to you. And Happy New Year. Jimmy Darts is the author of the new book, Undercover Kindness. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.