Twitter post turns shop owner's forgotten anniversary into a day he will never forget

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- This story is about the power of human kindness and the power of social media used for good.

Dave High marked 35 years in business at his Northwest Fresno store Wednesday. Thirty-five years is a pretty significant anniversary, so Dave had cupcakes and drinks for folks who came by.

But nobody came until Kayla Jackson and her husband walked in.

It turned into a day that Dave High will never forget. Customers have been coming through the doors non-stop. Dave's son Richard has barely gotten a break from all the phone calls.

When our Action News crew arrived at Sunrise Health Foods on Thursday, Richard was just getting off the phone with another caller.

"Thanks! And where are you calling from? Colorado? Okay! All right! Well, thank you! We appreciate it!"

The calls came in from Colorado, Mexico, and Hawaii.

All of the commotion started the night before, when a woman named Kayla came to visit the store to chat with Dave.

Kayla said, "We were just talking to him, and he was just saying it was his 35th anniversary, and how he didn't expect it to be this slow, and he was kind of sad that no one had come in yet."

So, Kayla did the only thing she knew to do. She took to Twitter and sent out the following message, "This is Dave, he owns Sunrise Health. Today is his 35th anniversary, and he was expecting people to come in, and no one showed up. I just got here, and he brought everything out to celebrate. Can we get him some recognition?"

But that wasn't all. Kayla tweeted a few more pictures and then she posted the store's phone number and said, "Call him and make his day!"

It didn't take long before the word spread far and wide.

On Thursday, Dave told Action News, "It just went off the clock. Everybody was coming in from nine in the morning until right now. People were in the store shopping."

Dave and his wife Christina met at Fresno State, and they opened the store right after graduation in 1983. They got married two years later and have five children and one grandchild. Thousands upon thousands of items line the shelves around the store, everything from essential oils to foods to vitamins.

Dave doesn't do social media. In fact, he doesn't even advertise.

Liz asked, "Do you understand Twitter at all?"

Dave answered, "Not so much, I will have to look on the Internet and see what it means."

So to what does Dave attribute his business longevity?

He explains, "I can memorize dates, or names, and try to be friendly to people, and I've got the Irish background. Maybe it's just stubbornness."

Dave has a list of his customers and people he's talked to on the phone, written out by hand on a notepad.

Action News asked him if he would look into social media to get his name out there, and he said he would. Kayla said she could help.

Kayla is the wife of the shopping center's security guard. They are a young couple and say Dave has helped them with all kinds of products, and they were happy to get the word out about his anniversary.