No One Came To This Little Boy’s Birthday Party But It Has A Happy Ending

I wrote last week about a little girl left out of a classmate’s birthday party and I have written before about my fear of having a friend party for my kids and having no one show up. Birthday parties can be fraught with emotion for both parents and their children. Who’s invited, who’s not-it can get very stressful. Honestly, I can’t think of many things sadder than a little one excited for their birthday party only to have not a single kid come. That is what happened to a 6-year old boy in Florida recently.

From Today:

Glenn Buratti’s whole class was invited to his birthday party on February 8 in St. Cloud, Fla., but not one of the 16 kids showed up.

After his mom, Ashlee, turned to a closed group on Facebook to vent about the devastating day for her son, who has autism, local parents and kids started coming over with presents and cards to save his birthday””followed by a friendly visit from local deputies and firemen a few days later.

This breaks my heart. What terrible luck that not one single kid came. Now, I am feeling guilty for all the classmate parties we have skipped over the years-I truly hope this didn’t happen to any of my kids’ friends. I’m glad Ashlee told her Facebook group what happened so this could be remedied in some way for Glenn. Some deputies stopped by with gifts they purchased themselves and spent a few minutes with the little boy. Of course, some locals had an issue with it because people are The Worst:

But, as the saying goes, no good deed goes unpunished, and the news has brought out some grumblings about the use of taxpayer dollars. ”Deputies do good things every day. This one just happened to make the news more than the others””for good reason,” says Twis Lizasuain, public and media relations director for the Osceola County Sherriff’s Office, pointing out that community outreach is a part of a law officer’s job.

Yes, the deputies were on duty, but they only stopped by briefly during their rounds, she clarified, adding that the story has grown and grown to include exaggerations that are not true.

As a tax payer, I would gladly pay even more toward these deputies salaries because as this article says, community outreach is part of their job. I don’t understand how people could take something so nice and turn it to shit, but that’s the way it goes. Nice work, humanity.

I know not every child who experiences disappointment will have their hearts mended back together again in such a grand fashion, but I am happy to hear about what this town did for Glenn. I hope it gave him a boost to know that so many people care about him.

(Image: holbox/Shutterstock)