This photo of a young boy was doing the rounds on Facebook, then very quickly got a huge amount of attention. The image, which was presumably taken inside a Walmart store, was shared thousands of times!
On his trip to Walmart with his mother, the boy went off by himself. When she found him just a short while after, she was ready to be cross with him for wandering off until she saw what he was doing!
“I had to run into Walmart. I turned around to make sure my son was next to me,” the caption of the photo which was initially shared by a Christian music station based in East Texas, 85.9 KVNE read.
When the mom found him, her son was kneeling at one of the benches towards the front of the store. Above the boy’s head was a poster which read: “Every second counts”
The caption continued:
“Instead of finding him by my side I found him kneeling in front of the missing children board praying.”
Ever since 1996, the retail chain Walmart and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) have partnered to reunite missing children with their families. One of the ways they do it is by placing boards with photos of missing children.
“We know that 134 children were recovered after callers to 1-800-THE LOST specifically stated they recognized a child’s photo on a Wal-Mart or SAM’S CLUB board,” Ernie Allen, the president and CEO of NCMEC, said.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children estimate that about 800,000 children are reported missing every year in the United States of America.
This very simple but powerful image went completely viral, everyone across the country just connected with the moment frozen in time by a photograph. Many of us just pass by those posters without taking a look, either because we don’t have the time or because we prefer to deny that they would ever be relevant to us. But this photo made a change and helped raise awareness, despite the fact that we don’t know if the story behind it is true.
One person on Facebook said something that really sums it up:
“Whether or not you believe in God really doesn’t matter. This was a child in Walmart who was thinking about others and doing the only thing he could to help. The world would be a better place if everyone followed his example.”
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