We told a real-life, inspirational, non-Christmas story.

One night in 2015, medical student Joyce Torrefranca took a photo of homeless boy Daniel Cabrera studying by the light of a McDonald’s store in the Philippines.

Joyce shared it on her Facebook page and it immediately went viral, inspiring thousands. Her post was picked up by local and international media, spurring donations from all over the world for Daniel and his family.

McDonald’s online film revisited that fateful night and how it changed the lives of Daniel and Joyce – all thanks to one photograph shared online, in an act of kindness.

It also documented their touching reunion one year later. At present, Daniel is among the top 10 students of his class, and Joyce has since become a registered Medical Technologist.

The narrative is simply capped by the line #ShareTheLove.

An online film about Daniel Cabrera, the homeless boy photographed studying outside a McDonald’s store in the Philippines. His photo was shared by Joyce Torrefranca, a student, on her Facebook page and went viral worldwide. The film recounts the story and their touching reunion one year later. The film was shared online via McDonald’s Philippines Facebook and YouTube pages at the onset of the Christmas holidays. Social media content featuring Daniel and Joyce were also released in the next weeks. Local and international media quickly picked up the film and expanded awareness for the campaign.

McDonald’s non-Christmas video became the inspirational Christmas story during the holidays – and beyond.

The film about the viral story went viral too, touching over 22.8 million netizens.

It has racked up more than 8.65 million views on Facebook and over 2.94 million views on YouTube, exceeding 126 thousand unique shares. It was also rapidly picked up by local and international media.

This generated an equivalent of 82.2 million impressions across all social media platforms.