Christmas is a time of joy, cheer and paying it forward, which is certainly what this 8-year-old boy from New Jersey is doing. When Hurricane Maria struck the island of Puerto Rico, third-grader Jayden Perez realized that the children there wouldn’t have any Christmas toys because of the hurricane.
When the hurricane hit, Jayden and his mom Ana Rosado volunteered to collect donations. It also inspired Jayden to donate items himself.
He wanted to donate his Christmas gifts to the children in Puerto Rico because he felt sad that they wouldn’t have any.
“He said, ‘Mom, I’m concerned kids aren’t going to get toys,'” Ana mentions to ABC. “That really touched me.”
“It happened right after Thanksgiving when he came to me and he was concerned that it’s Christmas and they’re not going to have toys,” she said to Huffington Post. “It started out with him telling me he wanted to donate his toys to the children in Puerto Rico.”
His mom wanted to take things a step further and organized a toy drive at their front door. Ana posted a video of Jayden on social media asking people to donate just one toy, and the response was absolutely massive.
“Kids lost a lot of their toys, and now they don’t have any,” little Jayden says in the video. “So can you donate one toy, from the bottom of my heart and the bottom of your heart?”
Dozens of people showed up and they certainly were generous. In fact, people donated more than a thousand toys!
According to ABC, Jayden has now collected more than 30 boxes filled with toys ready to be shipped to Puerto Rico.
“I just thought it was going to be something small, we’d collect maybe 50 to 100 toys [but] no, my god, this has gone beyond,” Ana said. “I’m so overwhelmed. I’m so proud of my son. … I didn’t expect so many toys.”
Jayden’s message on social media also reached people who didn’t live in the area, so Ana created a GoFundMe page where people could donate money instead. At the time of writing, the fundraiser is just a bit short of the $10,000 milestone, which means that Jayden will be able to buy much more toys for the children in Puerto Rico.
Originally, the family wanted to give all of the toys to friends who were traveling to the island anyway, but because of the massive response, they decided to deliver the gifts themselves.
“I think it’s a great experience for Jayden to see what these kids have gone through and the smile that he’s going to bring to them when he gives them the toys,” Ana concluded.
What a heartwarming story and a fantastic little boy!
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