Two middle school students from Buffalo, New York are going viral for a simple act of kindness.
Romello “Mello” Early and Melvin Anderson are the best of friends, but one day Mello broke down in tears after watching his friend get bullied for the pair of shoes he was wearing.
“I could tell it was upsetting [Anderson],” Mello told WGRZ-TV. “It just put a real bad ache in my stomach to see somebody have to go through that, and to be picked on just based off appearance.”
The 12-year-old who attends Buffalo Creek Academy Charter School felt helpless as classmates taunted Anderson calling his shoes “dirty.”
“I really didn’t appreciate other people talking about him that way,” Mello told the Washington Post.
So he decided to do something to help.
“Can we go buy him some shoes?” he suggested to his mother over the phone.
Anita James told her son they could discuss it later, but when she got home she found her son even more distraught over the situation.
“He was bullied at his old school about his height, and he would come home crying sometimes,” she explained about her son.
Mello told his mother he wanted to buy his friend a new pair of shoes to stave off the bullies, and he had a plan to do it.
He suggested that his mother withhold his allowance and some of his Christmas gifts in order to pay for the purchase.
“I was floored because most kids are not willing to give up something to another child; most kids are about themselves,” James said. “Just to see at that age he was acting as an adult, it touched me in a way that I almost can’t even describe.”
The two went out that evening and brought Anderson a $135 pair of shoes.
The next day, Mello excitedly handed his friend the new box of shoes.
Anderson was floored.
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“I was totally shocked,” the young boy said. “I felt very happy and very surprised.”
Bryant Brown Jr., the dean of culture at the school, saw the shoebox and asked the boys about it.
When he learned what Mello did for a friend, it brought him to tears. “I was so moved,” Brown told the Post. “It’s so beautiful.”
“[It’s] everything I want these kids to be,” he added.
Brown decided to share a photo of the two on his Facebook page. The post has received 21,000 likes, 18,000 shares, and 2,000 comments. On Instagram, the story has more than 1 million views.
He shared, “We truly think it was a kind gesture that I haven’t seen ever in my life. I’ve seen it on YouTube and I see acts of kindness with students all around this world, but for it to happen at Buffalo Creek, I was lost for words.”
Anderson said he is saving up his allowance to pay his friend back.
But Mello told him, “You don’t have to pay me back. That’s just a gift from me to you.”
Brown, Mello, and Anderson have plans to launch an anti-bullying campaign in a few weeks.
“Bullying happens every single day,” said Brown. “We’re going to do everything we can to prevent it, and make sure Mello’s helping hand always lives on.”
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