He would leave his house on Ringo and walk down Roosevelt Road to get to the UPS center. That's about five-and-a-half miles away. He would then take this journey back home after his shift was over.
Lewis, who loads trucks at UPS, would force himself out of bed and every night in the rain or cold, and even through some rough parts of town, just to get to work on time.
"I had music in my head. I was just walking, not worried about nothing, I was just moving my feet," he said.
Lewis said his job became more important to him after his daughter was born.
"When I had my daughter, I knew I had to step up. I didn't have a job when she was born," said Lewis.
Help came after Patricia Bryant, who works with Lewis in the loading docks, told her husband, Kenneth Bryant, a veteran driver at UPS, about Lewis' walk to work every day.
Bryant told the station that he knew Lewis had to be "a dedicated young man to walk to work" every day.
That's when he realised he had to start collecting donations from other workers at UPS.
"I was like, 'It's coming together, It's coming together, slowly," said Bryant.
By the time it was all over, Bryant had collected $1,900 and found a reliable car.
He and several other co-workers then planned a surprise for Lewis in the parking lot of their job.
"He just pulled some keys out of his pocket, and I'm like 'That can't be mine. Those keys cannot be mine.'
"He brought them to me and my heart just dropped. this can't be real," Lewis told the station.
Now, Lewis can actually leave at a normal time to get to work in his Saturn. He leaves around 3.30am.