Unless you were one of the lucky few, high school probably wasn’t the best time for you.
Most of us can remember feeling awkward and out of place, wondering why there were some people who seemed to have mastered how to be cool before we did.
Luckily, the majority of us will have had at least one friend in high school – but the same can’t be said for everyone.
The first day of school as a freshman is one of the most daunting days a child will have to face, but thanks to the kindness of some upperclassmen, one new student didn’t have it so bad.
At Reidsville Senior High School, like at every other school in the US, August 2019 marked a return to school.
Fourteen-year-old Caleb Wrenn hadn’t had the best first day so far. He’d spent it alone, and had been called “short”.
No, it’s not the worst insult in the world, but when you’re trying to fit in, it hurts to have someone point out exactly how you’re different.
He sent his older sister, Leah, a text explaining that he had sat alone at lunch because “I don’t really have friends”.
Leah replied that he should introduce himself, and Caleb, a typical paranoid fourteen-year-old, responded:
“Well I know them but they think I’m a loser because I’m short.”
Leah told her brother not to listen to “idiots like that”, and Caleb explained that that was why he was sitting alone – to ignore them.
Feeling frustrated for her little bro, Leah shared their text correspondence to Twitter, alongside a photo of him.
She wrote:
“Retweet to let my baby brother know that he is cool before I have to pull up to RHS.”
Pupils from the school ended up seeing Leah’s tweet, which had been retweeted thousands of times and had hundreds of comments.
This included football and basketball students, who decided they needed to do something about it.
Demontez Canada, a senior at Reidsville Senior HS and member of the football and basketball teams, recalled their game plan in an interview with WXII 12 News:
“We decided to catch him off guard at lunch and have lunch with him and show him around the school and make sure he was okay and give him new friends.”
He added:
“I felt like I had to make a stand and make sure he was okay because he is a freshman and he shouldn’t have to go through this his first year of high school.”
If you can remember high school yourself, you’ll know how rare it is to come across a single student that is willing to show another student that they care, let alone a whole group of them.
The majority of high school students are good kids deep down, but self-image always comes first.
It’s a survival thing – most kids feel like they don’t have any choice. But Demontez Canada and his friends were willing to put their reputations to the side in the name of befriending a kid who had no one.
Caleb’s new friends say they feel “blessed” to have been able to help him, and Caleb himself said that it felt “really nice” to know that there were people who cared. He added:
“I’ve always been kind of used to being the loner or the outsider, the outcast, but it feels good to have friends.”
Aww – this is exactly the story we needed to read today. You can watch video interviews with Caleb and his buddies just below.
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