After more than 55,000 shares, someone tagged the little girl’s hero in the post: Tario Fuller II, a freshman football player for Purdue University.
Advertisement
“I don’t think [Kinley] really understood we weren’t there to buy toys that day, so she was pleading her case of why she wanted that doll so badly”, Shufflebarger told ABC News.
Fuller is now a running back for the Purdue Boilermakers.
“I want him to just know how much it meant to us and to her”, Shufflebarger says.
Birthday girl Kinley Shufflebarger with her doll from Tario Fuller (Photo: Megan Shufflebarger).
“He came back a few minutes later with the doll in the bag and a receipt and handed it to me and said “This dolly is for you”.
Kinley’s 3rd birthday was just around the corner, and she knew exactly what she wanted.
She wrote: ‘What a reminder to never lose faith in humanity and to be generous and pay it forward.
She thanked him for his kindness.
Odd, Shufflebarger thought, but the family soon became distracted as they continued making their way through the toy department.
Mr Fuller heard her cooing over potential presents in the store in Lafayette, Indiana, and couldn’t help himself stopping to ask her favorite. “To this generous young man, whoever you are, I hope you see this and more importantly, I hope you know what a good young man you are”.
She made a decision to track him down to fully express her gratitude, sharing the story on Facebook, in the hope that someone would recognise his face from the photo.
Shufflebarger was “speechless”, she later told CBS News.
“Tario is a good role model for kids these days”.
Advertisement
According to WTSP, the touching Facebook post quickly caught the attention of Facebook users around the world. One of Fuller’s former classmates weighed in, confirming the teen’s “big heart”, and Purdue Athletics issued a statement saying they “couldn’t be more proud“.
