Hoda Kotb Celebrates 'Good People All Around' After Stranger Returns Her Lost Phone

The Today show host called a Good Samaritan named Stan Levine "the greatest guy" after he returned a phone she had accidentally dropped at a park

By Gabrielle Chung

Published on October 14, 2020 11:47 PM

Hoda Kotb is seeing the kindness in strangers.

The Today show co-host, 56, gave a sweet shout-out to a man named Stan Levine on Wednesday after he returned a phone she had accidentally dropped while visiting Riverside Park with daughters Hope Catherine, 17 months, and Haley Joy, 3½.

Sharing a video of her encounter with the Good Samaritan, Kotb called Levine "the greatest guy" on her Instagram.

"So today I was in the park with my kids.. when we got home I realized my cellphone was missing... I must have dropped it somewhere in riverside park!" she began in the accompanying caption. "My friend dialed my number hoping someone would see the phone and pick it up-- and STAN LEVINE answered. He said 'I found your phone in the park..I will wait here with it until you come back. You will recognize me because I am the guy with the walker.' "

In a video of their meeting, Kotb asked Levine where he had found her phone.

"Yeah, I just found it on the side of the road," he replied. "You must've been walking up this road."

"I think I was," Kotb remarked, before showing Levine her gratitude for returning her cellphone. "I love Stan Levine!"

The This Just Speaks to Me author added in the clip's caption, "Thank you Stan! Good people all around❤️."

Kotb's followers quickly flooded the comments section with praise for Levine, with Jason Kennedy writing, "Stan the man!"

"MORNING BOOST!" Kotb's colleague Savannah Guthrie quipped, referencing the Today's famous feel-good segment.

In July, Kotb and her Today show co-hosts reunited for a socially distanced picnic — marking the first time the journalists had all been physically together since the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. in March.

"We, us, as a group, got to hang out socially, we got to chat about what we missed. We had a ton of fun," Kotb — who remained at the show's Midtown office while her fellow co-hosts filmed the show at home — said of the reunion.

Kotb previously told PEOPLE that she had been waking up at 3 a.m. (rather than her usual 4:15 a.m.) in order to commute into the city from her weekend home, prep for the day, mic herself and do her own hair and makeup for the show.

"It’s totally weird. I hate to say that I’m so naive, but I didn’t know how one of those big steamers worked, to steam clothes," Kotb said. "So today all my [clothes] were in a ball. I went into the wardrobe room and I literally was steaming the place up right after I had done my hair. It’s the small things that trip you up and make you realize how much we need every single person we work with."