Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Dads of young girls know the struggle with public bathrooms. This 30th Street Station worker stepped up to help.

A viral video by a dad whose daughter needed to use the bathroom shows that good things happen in Philly.

Let's show some love to Jorsh Delfish, a maintenance worker at William H. Gray III 30th Street Station, who helped a traveling father whose daughter needed to use a bathroom before boarding a train.
Let's show some love to Jorsh Delfish, a maintenance worker at William H. Gray III 30th Street Station, who helped a traveling father whose daughter needed to use a bathroom before boarding a train.Read moreJose F. Moreno / Staff Photographer

For some one-on-one daddy-daughter time, Kier Gaines took his 6-year-old daughter to Philly during the week between Christmas and New Year’s. After visiting the Franklin Institute and spending the night at the Center City Marriott, it was time for them to head to William H. Gray III 30th Street Station to catch an Amtrak home to Washington, D.C.

But before their train arrived, little Emery Gaines announced that she needed to use the bathroom. Every man who has traveled with a preschool-age girl in tow can probably relate to the dilemma that a small request like this poses.

Gaines, a licensed therapist and digital creator, decided she was too young to go to the ladies’ room without him. So, carrying their luggage, he and his little girl headed to the men’s room. Just as they arrived, someone who appeared to be experiencing homelessness exited. The one available stall was foul-smelling and badly in need of cleaning.

Gaines was trying to decide what to do when a maintenance worker offered to help. Soon, Gaines had a freshly cleaned stall. “‘I understand how hard it is to be a dad and to try and get them in a clean bathroom where they feel comfortable and safe,’” Gaines said the maintenance worker told him.

Gaines was so touched by the man’s kind gesture that as he waited for his train, he decided to create a video about what had happened. It quickly went viral, amassing more than 800,000 likes and 8,000 comments. “For that man to see me struggling and understand deeply what that meant and clean that stall for my baby, man, that meant the world,” he taped himself saying. “I appreciate that brother.”

He also urged his viewers that if they saw the employee, to tell him he did an awesome job.

I’ve heard many stories from men who struggle to navigate public bathrooms with their daughters. I’ve also written about the challenges they sometimes face because many male restrooms don’t have diaper-changing tables.

We also don’t see enough examples of people being kind to each other. I decided to find the maintenance worker and give him a shout-out.

His name is Jorsh Delfish. (Gaines thought it was George.)

Originally from Grenada, the 31-year-old grew up in Philly and is the father of a 3-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter. He’s all too familiar with what it’s like to be a dad with a daughter who needs to use a public restroom. “If it’s a male bathroom, I try to scope the scene before I bring her in there because they’ve got men standing at the urinals,” Delfish told me.

Yes, it’s great that more diaper-changing tables are popping up in men’s restrooms these days. But we also need more public family restrooms. The nationwide push for more has pretty much “fallen off the radar,” Steven Soifer, president of the American Restroom Association, recently told me.

Delfish’s manager told him about the video, which was shared by comedian D.L. Hughley, among others. Seeing it put a smile on his face on what, for him, had been a difficult day (his grandmother’s health is ailing).

Hopefully, this column will put another smile on his face.

I spend an awful lot of time documenting bad things that happen — crime, loss, injustice, politicians who don’t do right. One of my goals is to write more about topics that uplift us. Philly may be the poorest big city in the country, but it’s not poor in spirit. This place is full of people like Delfish who step up to help others.

“I’m glad that people were able to see the good that still exists within humanity,” Gaines said when I interviewed him. “It’s not special. It happens every day. We just don’t get to hear about it. Hopefully, this kindles more of that.”

After all, as Delfish aptly pointed out, “You can’t let the darkness take over the light.”