This retiree drives underprivileged college students home from school

A selfless 76-year-old retiree in upstate New York is dedicating his golden years to paying it forward — driving thousands of miles to bring low-income college students home from school.

Paul Goetchius is a driver for On Point for College, a Syracuse-based nonprofit that serves underprivileged college students, CBS News reported.

The organization has logged more than 442,000 miles, bringing students between their campuses and their homes — and Goetchius alone is responsible for more than 60,000 of them, according to the report.

“If I couldn’t afford the gas or the car, I couldn’t do it,” he told the outlet. “But I can. Therefore, I’m happy to do it.”

Ruby Zathang, a sophomore business major at the Rochester Institute of Technology and the first in her family to attend college, is one of Goetchius’ passengers. She calls him Mr. G, and he was recently bringing her home to Syracuse.

“I had some kind of click with Mr. G,” she told CBS. “We immediately became friends. And I was really excited and curious to see how he, you know, approached college.”

Zathang, who was born in the country of Myanmar, formerly Burma, and is the eldest of six children, told the outlet that Goetchius is simply “being the best version of himself.”

“I grew up on a poor dairy farm,” Goetchius said. “If I hadn’t had an education, I know pretty much where I would be today. And that doesn’t look pretty. And you know, having had the college opportunity, I want to see as many young adults get that opportunity.”

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