Ron Hill handed out the bread. The Ravens are handing him some tickets.
Hill, 60, went viral earlier this month after being a good Samaritan to hundreds of snow-stranded motorists on I-95 between Washington, D.C. and Richmond, Va.
The Ravens caught word of his generosity and are giving the massive Ravens fan four tickets to a game next season. He was surprised with the news during an appearance on "The Kelly Clarkson Show" Friday morning.
Hill was driving his Schmidt Baking Company truck when the Virginia stretch of highway turned into a very cold parking lot for nearly 24 hours.
"I was weeping and didn't understand why. I was thinking, 'Should I go in the back of this truck, start handing out bread, and catch the weight later?'" Hill told Baltimore Magazine. "As I was sitting at the steering wheel thinking about it, I saw a lady walk up to the side of my truck."
A motorist a few cars back, Casey Holihan, and her husband, John Noe, called a customer service number for Schmidt Baking Company and eventually got a call back from Baltimore-based H&S, which distributes the bread. Co-owner and senior vice president of transportation, Chuck Paterakis, told Holihan to give the phone to Hill and instructed him that it was OK to hand out the free bread.
Hill, who lives in Harford County, handed out about 500 loaves of Potato Rolls and Old Tyme split-top wheat bread.
"It was an interesting little community we created," Holihan told the magazine. "A couple hours earlier we were all honking and upset with the traffic and the frustration. But then you remember that these are real people. They have lives. We got to talk to some of them and pet their dogs and ask them about where they were going. It was a little pocket of humanity and community that we created on that stretch of I-95 that won't be forgotten."
