"How could I say no?" 18-year-old Jamal Hinton said. "She's like a second grandma."
A grandmother who accidentally invited a stranger to Thanksgiving dinner last year when she texted a wrong number has hosted him again this year.
Wanda Dench, of Mesa, Ariz., contacted 18-year-old Jamal Hinton about a month ago to ask if he'd join her family for the second year in a row.
"How could I say no?" Hinton told InsideEdition.com. "She's like a second grandma."
The pair met by chance last year when Dench texted her grandson about the family's Thanksgiving dinner plans — or so she thought. She'd actually messaged Hinton, who she did not know.
When they realized the mistake, Hilton joked, “Can I still get a plate tho?”
“Of course you can,” she wrote back. “That’s what grandmas do... feed everyone.”
After Hinton shared their exchange on Twitter, it promptly went viral and he decided to take her up on her offer.
News cameras were there as they met, and they snapped a photo together.
This time around — out of the glare of the media — the duo got to know each other better.
"We wanted to get to know him without all the news people in our house," Dench told InsideEdition.com. "It was so busy and crazy we didn’t get to know him personally."
But this year, "it was a lot nicer," she said. "It was more low-key."
And they're hoping that this won't be the last year he joins their family.
"We told him he's invited every year and I will reach out every time. He said he'd love to come," Dench said. "He is our extended adopted grandson."
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