Shufflebarger repeated the story for her hundreds of friends on Facebook, sharing a photo of the young man posing with Kinley, who had a “sweet little shocked smile” on her face. “Seriously. What a reminder to never loose faith in humanity and to be generous and pay it forward”, she added.
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But the Indiana mother of three (including son Colton, 7, and Sophia, 4) needn’t have anxious.
Megan Shufflebarger described what happened in a Facebook post that has since been shared 124,000 times.
Tario Lavelle Fuller Jr., a 19-year-old freshman football player at Purdue University and Gwinnett native, is credited with a generous act of kindness that went viral last week.
Shufflebarger told ABC News that she was made utterly “speechless” by the young man’s gesture.
Within hours, she said, somebody recognized him.
The mother posted a photo of the anonymous man and her daughter to Facebook, saying her heart was “about to explode”. He handed Kinley’s mom a shopping bag and a receipt and told the little girl to “have a very happy birthday”. “He really does just seem like such an all-around good kid”.
A young man took note and knelt down next to the young girl and asked her which one was her favorite, according to CBS.
The mom also said the young man had taught her family an important lesson.
The mom said she desperately wanted to track down the young man to fully express her gratitude, so when she got home from the store, she took to Facebook in the hope that someone might recognize him from the photograph. As the toddler, Kinley, began making a list of what she wanted, a teen overheard the commotion and approached her. “That, to me, is just incredible”, says Sufflebarger.
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As for Kinley, she’s been smiling wide since she got that doll. “It means the world to me that my son can see that everybody can do good in the world. I’d be so tickled if he were doing things like [Tario did] at his age”.
