The most important person at a Buffalo cancer centre might be the man who parks the cars.

Jon Avery is a valet at Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center in Buffalo, New York. He greets patients with a smile, a Buffalo Bills hat and words of encouragement before they walk through the doors.

His goal, he says, is to “have a meaningful encounter that’s not hollow.” To breast cancer survivor Kate Fink, he kept saying, “You got this,” until she believed it. Sweet Buffalo founder Kimberly LaRussa says he once turned her whole day around with a single sentence.

When Avery mentioned he was saving for a Buffalo Bills game, Fink and her colleagues raised money and got him tickets and field passes.

“I serve people, that’s what I do,” Avery said. For patients facing dark days, his small moments of kindness are exactly what hope looks like.

His story shows how small acts of kindness, repeated daily, can matter as much as medicine for people fighting illness.