In the summer of 2026 a man on Long Island saw her story on the news and asked how he could help. The woman was Nina Chambers, 36, a mother of three in the Melrose section of the Bronx. The two had never met.
A fire in a neighboring building on East 160th Street tore through her apartment. CBS News New York reporter Naveen Dhaliwal met her on June 28. “I saw everything that me and my children own gone. We lost everything,” Chambers said at the time.
The family moved into a hotel. Chambers was buying food for her children, and her TD Bank account went into overdraft.
Scott Evans was watching. “This was something, one of the things that I could do something about,” he said.
Evans went to a TD Bank branch and tried to put money straight into Chambers’ account. The bank would not allow it. So he emailed Dhaliwal, the reporter who had covered the story, and she connected him to Chambers.
Evans gave Chambers $3,000 to help feed her children and get them ready for school. The two had never met.
“He didn’t ask me for anything except, how can I help you?” Chambers said. “It’s priceless. You don’t meet people that do those type of things for nothing. It’s rare.”
CBS followed up on August 23, 2026, eight weeks after the fire. Her old apartment was still in disarray. She had secured a new apartment and had graduated from school with a degree in human services.
Evans and Chambers had still not met in person when that report ran. She said she hoped to. “He’s been a blessing ever since,” she said. “I just want to get on my feet so I can pay it forward.” The report does not say more than that, so neither do we.
One email to a reporter
Evans had no way to reach Chambers. He had a news segment, a bank that would not take his deposit, and the name of the person who had made the segment. The email to Dhaliwal was the whole introduction.
When Dhaliwal told Evans what Chambers had said about him, he grew emotional. His explanation for the gift was short.
I’m blessed that I can do it. We have no mortgage. We have no car payments.
What stays with us is how plain the steps were. He watched, tried the direct way, hit a wall, and found another door. Earlier this year we told the story of a stranger who saw a Facebook post and gave a man a kidney. The need is different here. The gap is the same: someone who could help, someone who was short, and no obvious way for the two to meet.
Where this story comes from
Originally reported by CBS News New York (Naveen Dhaliwal), updated August 23, 2026. Retold here with the details as that report gives them.
