A valet became a key source of support for cancer patients at a New York care center: “He’s made an impact”

Kate Fink is a breast cancer survivor. It is a success she credits, in no small part, to the unlikeliest of people who work at her care center in Buffalo, New York: the hospital valet.

“Absolutely, I mean he’s made an impact,” the 41-year-old Fink told CBS News of the valet. “Not just me, but so many other people.”

The person Fink speaks so highly of is Jon Avery, who parks cars at the Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center.

“There’s always an exception to the rule, right?” Avery said. “So I’m one of the exceptions.”

He does his job with such joy, such contagious optimism, that if not for the wheelchairs, you would never know some of these people were even sick. He’s just a shining lighthouse of hope in the dark storm of their diagnoses.

He says his goal when he is interacting with patients is to “have a meaningful encounter that’s not hollow.”

Avery just kept telling Fink, day after day, to keep pushing, saying, “You got this.”

And after a while, she believed it.

“Yeah, it’s just your mindset just kind of changes,” Fink said.

Fink said she was so grateful for Avery’s kindness and support that she “wanted to do something nice for him.”

At one point, Avery had mentioned to Fink that he was saving money because he really wanted to attend a Buffalo Bills game. It was just a passing comment, but one that Fink couldn’t pass up.

So, last month, she and her work colleagues at West Herr Automotive Group raised money, made calls, and got Avery tickets and field passes to a Bills game.

Avery was beyond grateful, but he said the gesture was hardly necessary.

“I serve people, that’s what I do,” Avery said. “And if I don’t got nothing else in the world that means anything to anybody, I know I can live in service.”