We all know the importance of teaching children about money and how sometimes it takes time to save for something special they have their eye on.

Ten-year-old Leon understood this. But he didn’t have enough allowance saved to buy a soft, cuddly stuffed panda that he had his eye on. The young boy had visited Asda supermarket in Liverpool, England, and discovered there was only one panda left and his mother’s next paycheck wasn’t expected until June 15th. He understood he couldn’t get the toy and decided to wait patiently until he could purchase it.

But he was worried that someone might not know he wanted the toy and would purchase it before he could. So he hid the ‘pandy’ in a box and wrote a message on the outside, requesting shoppers to not purchase the toy.

The message read, “My mum didn’t have enough money to buy me pandy so she’s buying me pandy on June 15th, so please don’t buy him as it will make me sad and I will cry, thank you so much from hopeful future owner.”

When Asda employees noticed the message, they put the photo up on Facebook to try and locate the boy as they had been touched by the note and had banded together to raise the money (which was around $20) to buy the Panda toy for Leon.

Leon’s mother, Debbie Ashworth, saw the news reports on Liverpool’s Echo website and recognised her son’s handwriting. She took Leon back to the store where his dreams came true and he became the proud new owner of the panda.

Asda’s news site reported Leon told his mother as they were walking out of the store, ‘This is the best day of my life.’

The kindness of Asda employees couldn’t have come at a better time for the family as they were still recovering from the loss of their youngest son and brother, Oliver.

Ms Ashworth, mum to three and an intensive care nurse said, “In January my son Oliver was born prematurely and passed away four days later so it’s been a really tough, difficult time for all of the family, especially the children who were so involved in the lead-up to the birth.”

But the story doesn’t end there.

After Leon received his toy, he decided to donate the $20 he saved for the toy to Honeysuckle Bond, an organization that helped the Ashworth’s, and other families who experience miscarriage, stillbirth or early neonatal death.

After the family appeared on TV in the UK sharing their experience of kindness from Asda, someone kindly donated a trip for the family to travel to China to see real Pandas. The kindness just keeps multiplying!

It just shows how acts of kindness can have a domino effect in inspiring others to give. We hope Leon and his family have an amazing trip to China.

We can never underestimate the power of a small simple act, and how thankful the recipient can be. Kindness is certainly the gift that keeps giving.