Viral Valentine’s Day gesture in Fresno captured on video. ‘Be kind, spread love always.’
Acts of kindness on Valentine’s Day have launched Fresno into the viral-sphere again.
And it was posted this week on social media by the same man who made fun and catchy videos of him helping out some of the less fortunate people in Fresno.
AK Moshin, manager of the Tower Gas & Mini Mart and a popular video creator on TikTok, spent part of his Valentine’s Day helping hand out flowers and gifts to random women around the city.
And it was all caught on a video that’s already generated 5 million views in less than a week on TikTok alone.
“All women — of any age and of any race — deserve flowers and love on Valentine’s Day,” Moshin said in an interview with The Bee. “That’s all we wanted to do. Just spread the love.”
Valentine’s Day surprise purchase
The Valentine’s Day video starts with Moshin approaching a street vendor named Miriam who was selling several Valentine’s Day gifts and flower arrangements.
Moshin said he’d noticed her set up shop near his gas station for a few days each of the past two years.
But Miriam always seemed to kind of struggle to make a lot of sales despite working long hours, he said.
So Moshin thought it’d be a nice gesture to help out the street vendor this year by making a large and generous purchase.
“I’ll buy all of them,” Moshin says in the video. “How much?”
The street vendor seems caught off guard by the question but breaks out a wide smile.
“Oh my gosh,” Miriam says.
After doing a quick visual assessment of her inventory, Miriam tells Moshin that it’d cost $500.
Moshin then hands her five $100 bills.
“Now go home and enjoy Valentine’s Day,” Moshin said.
Giving away flowers for free in Fresno
Moshin, however, was not done trying to bring more joy to others on this day.
With the help of a man named Jerry, who Moshin said used to be homeless but has since turned around his life and been sober the past three years, the two drive around Fresno to hand out the Valentine’s Day flowers and gifts.
“Are you serious?” a woman asks in the video as Jerry hands out a bouquet of flowers out of a car window. “That is so sweet. Thank you.”
Moshin said they spent an hour driving along Blackstone Avenue, from the Manchester Mall area to Community Regional Medical Center in downtown Fresno, to find women out in public areas and receptive to accepting gifts from strangers.
“There were some women who declined the gifts,” Moshin said. “I think they were just so surprised. Sometimes, people think there’s strings attached when someone does something nice.
“It was Valentine’s Day. We just wanted to make them happy.”
Perhaps one of the more heartwarming moments in the videos is when Jerry hands a bouquet of flowers to a woman who’s riding a motorized wheelchair.
Moshin estimated at least 20 women received flowers or roses or balloons or some type of gift arrangement from them.
He even later met the street vendor who had sold him all of the Valentine’s gifts and gave Miriam an extra $500 after receiving comments on his video that he didn’t give her enough money for buying all of her inventory that day.
“The main purpose was to help her out,” Moshin said of Miriam. “She’s a mother. She works hard. It’s Valentine’s Day. She deserved to enjoy her day and not spend the whole day working.
“But the other women, too. They’re probably someone’s mother or daughter or sister. They deserve to enjoy Valentine’s, too.”
Helping others help videos go viral
Moshin is no stranger to producing viral videos.
Moshin has posted several popular videos over the past two years that highlighted the quirky personalities of some of the less fortunate in Fresno who he met while working at his gas station in the Tower District.
Moshin said he initially was just trying to post funny content, with no intention of going viral.
But as his videos become more and more popular, he tried to held light on how the homeless people that he met were so much more than folks who were struggling in life.
In turn, Moshin’s TikTok account generated more than 66 million likes.
“Life in Fresno can be interesting,” Moshin said while trying to explain why his videos often are popular.
Moshin concluded his viral Valentine’s video with a message:
“Be kind, spread love always, and happy Valentine’s Day.”
