Nine-Year-Old Girl Uses Birthday Money to Buy Lunch for Police

A young girl’s post-Dallas gesture toward her local police force will warm your heart.

On the eve of her ninth birthday, Samya McLaughlin decided to use her birthday money to give something back to her local Detroit police precinct after seeing coverage of the July 7 Dallas police shootings. She and her parents, Sierra and Sam McLaughlin, teamed with several of their family members to deliver homemade bagged lunches to officers of the 11th precinct.

The young girl told Today, “I felt really bad for the kids (in Dallas) who lost their fathers, so I wanted to take care of the police officers and support them.”

McLaughlin’s gesture was greatly appreciated by the police according to 14-year veteran officer Norma Black: “To have such a small body with such a large heart and want to share her birthday with us like that, it was phenomenal. There were some tears shed. It had been gloomy around here (in the wake of the Dallas shootings), and when she showed up it set a whole different tone.”

Black went on to describe the affect McLaughlin’s actions had on the community.

“Since Samya did this for us, we’ve gotten a lot of phone calls about churches wanting to send us food and other people thanking us, so she has really fostered togetherness.”

The lunches for police weren’t the only good deed done by the McLaughlins that day, as they also donated meals to homeless people in the area.

McLaughlin summed up everything as such: “It felt really good because I like making people happy, and I like to take care of people.”