A Foot Locker Employee’s Kind Act Would Have Gone Unknown If Not for a Caring Mom

It is always a special moment to receive a brand new pair of shoes, especially for one 10-year-old boy in Florida getting his first new pair because of an act of generosity.

Giga Pena was shopping in Leesburg mall ViaPort Florida, when her son, Jonas Nelson, browsed a pair of Air Jordans in a Foot Locker. 18-year-old Jadyn Brammeier Vasquez, an employee with Foot Locker, allowed Nelson to try on the pair of new shoes.

When Pena saw that her son was trying them on, she told him to remove the sneakers because they could not afford to buy them. That’s when Vasquez generously offered to pay for Nelson’s Air Jordans — and she wasn’t even aware that today was the boy’s birthday.

At first, Pena declined the kind proposal, but then allowed Vazquez to buy the shoes for Nelson after Vazquez told her that she wanted to spread holiday cheer.

“As a kid, I had always wanted a pair of Foot Locker shoes but could never afford them, so I could relate to Jonas,” Vazquez told The Daily Commercial. “I was in foster care for almost two years and moved in with my new adoptive parents about this time last year. I might not have had the greatest past, but they’ve given me so much to look forward to. I realize that the world might not be beautiful all the time, but we are the ones that have to make it what we want it to be.”

Pena snapped a photo of her son and the kind Foot Locker employee. She shared the photo to Facebook on December 4, and it went viral.

“I just wanted people in my community to know that there are still good people around,” Pena told Your Daily Dish. “Nowadays the older generation looks down at the younger generation and sometimes say some cruel things, but here you had a young lady doing something good for a younger generation. I loved that people were able to see the good being done and wanted to give the young lady recognition for her random act of kindness.”

On Facebook, ViaPort Florida thanked Vazquez for going “above and beyond this holiday season.”

Four days later, Nelson and his mother returned to the Foot Locker and presented Vasquez with a framed photo and a certificate of appreciation.