Emotional Thank-You Message Goes Viral After Bestselling Author Reaches Out to a Favorite Teacher (Exclusive)

"Educators do not get paid enough and they don't get enough appreciation," Abby Jimenez tells PEOPLE

Tears were flowing from Nadia Cakes founder Abby Jimenez when she recently called her former English teacher Tim House to thank him for inspiring her to become a bestselling author — in a moment that has now gone viral on social media.

House, whose prior claim to fame was being a Jeopardy! champion in 1991, had been Jimenez's teacher at Quartz Hill High School in Lancaster, Calif., from about 1994 to 1997.

Still, he tells PEOPLE, he didn't know about Jimenez's own successful career as a baker and romance writer, of popular books including Yours Truly and Just for the Summer. He just knew she was a former student who wanted to talk to him.

She subsequently posted their heartfelt conversation, recorded on Oct. 9, on her TikTok account where it has been seen more than 2.3 million times.

"I've had a lot of people say because of this post, 'I've reached out to my old teacher to let them know how much they meant,' " Jimenez, 44, says in an interview with PEOPLE. "Educators do not get paid enough and they don't get enough appreciation. Even if it comes so many years later, I think it matters so much."

What's more, Jimenez says, it's been "just the coolest thing" to see so many people in the comments saying they took House's class and loved him, too. (One student wrote that they called him "Dr. Mr. House," after the TV show.)

His daughter Kaitlyn Browning joined in, writing in the comments that "[m]y husband is also an English teacher and we just cried watching this video it was so moving!”

“Sometimes, as a teacher, you have no idea what impact you've had on kids and it’s absolutely gratifying and makes you happy this is the career I chose,” says House, 69, who retired five years ago after three decades in the classroom.

"Well worth the 32 years," he says.

And he’s happy to hear about all of the people saying the video has sparked a fire to thank the educators in their own lives.

“There are lots of teachers out there like me who need to get this kind of affirmation,” House says. “And sometimes it comes from the most surprising sources.”

Jimenez says she didn't initially intend on recording their conversation last week. When House returned her call, one of her daughters, who wanted to hear the chat, wasn't home so another daughter suggested recording it.

House also agreed to allow Jimenez to post their talk on social media. She says they spoke for more than 40 minutes and only a small part has been posted, although she plans on doing more to tout House's impact.

“You made me love writing. I hated high school, but I loved your class,” Jimenez tells him in her TikTok video. “I don’t know that I would be a writer today if it wasn’t for you.”

Jimenez had found her high school creative writing binder (“with all your funny little notes”) the night before and decided to tell House how much he meant to her.

He responded in the video that she was going to “make me cry too.”

“This is the kind of thing that makes you feel like being a teacher was a worthwhile profession, when you can inspire people to go on to bigger and better things,” House tells her in the clip. “You’ve accomplished more with writing than I ever will, but that pleases me to no end.”

As she shares in her video with her old teacher, Jimenez's career path had its ups and downs: After finishing high school, she couldn’t afford to go to college so she went into food service as a waitress and later worked in retail management.

However, she was laid off in 2007 when she was pregnant with her third child.

She started a cake business out of her home in Palmdale, Calif., and then turned that into a business with three shops, including two in Minnesota, where she currently lives with her husband and three teenaged children.

When she spoke with House, Jimenez asked if he was familiar with her baking business — and he told her, “I was actually there a few days ago. Got a couple of cupcakes. I had a gift card.”

Food is not her only calling card, of course: After winning Food Network’s Cupcake Wars in 2013, Jimenez started writing romance novels.

Just for the Summer, her sixth book, debuted at No. 1 on The New York Times bestseller list this year.

“The only schooling that I ever had for writing was your class,” she tells House in her video. “I wanted you to know you made such a difference. I never forgot about you.”

The two plan to have a reunion at Jimenez's Seattle Arts & Lectures event on April 3, next year, and she looks forward to seeing him in person after their phone conversations. She's also agreed to come to his wife's high school creative writing class to speak to her students.

House was "doing something far more important during his career than I will ever do in mine," Jimenez says. "His reach is going to be much more profound for the students he's touched and lives he's changed."

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Read the original article on People.