On Dec. 20, Mello called his mother on FaceTime, which he does every day after school. That afternoon, Mello broke down in tears the moment his mother, Anita James, answered the phone.
"Mello, what happened?" James asked her son on the phone while typing something in the computer.
"I'm getting tired of them bullying（欺凌）my friend about his shoes. It's making me so upset," he responded in a serious voice, explaining that his classmates made fun of his friend Melvin for having worn-out muddy sneakers.
James listened to Mello's narration with a thoughtful expression. Then, Mello earnestly asked, "Can we go buy him some shoes?"
James told her son they would talk about it when she got home from work. During their in-person conversation a few hours later, James found her son still upset. At last, Mello decided to buy his friend a fresh pair of sneakers to get rid of bullies and remind him that he has people who care about him.
"Can I use my pocket money, or you can take something away that I would get for Christmas?" Mello asked his mother.
The sincere request from her son hit James for many reasons, including that when she was growing up, her older brother used to buy her sneakers when her parents couldn't afford them. Now, in their adult lives, James buys her brother a pair of sneakers for his birthday every year to show her gratitude. James was so touched by her little boy's. genuine care for his friend and she knew how it would matter to the poor kid, Melvin.
That evening, they went to a sneaker store and bought a pair of black-and-white Nike shoes for Melvin. Mello used savings from his pocket money to pay for the $85 shoes.
This way, Mello thought, "nobody could laugh at him or say anything about him anymore. " Mello was so excited to give Melvin the gift that he woke up nearly an hour early for school.
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Before class began, Mello handed his friend the orange Nike box in private.
Bryant Brown, the school's social studies teacher, spotted the shoe box on Melvin's desk.
