This photo of a little boy was doing the rounds on Facebook, and quickly attracted a lot of attention. The photo, which was presumably taken at a Walmart store, has been shared thousands of times!
During his trip to Walmart with his mother, the boy went off by himself. When she found him soon 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 mother found him, her son was kneeling on one of the benches in front of the store. Above the boy’s head was a poster that 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.”
Since 1996, Walmart and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) have worked together 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 estimates 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 could easily connect to this frozen moment in time through a photo. Many of us simply pass by these posters without giving them a second glance, 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.
Someone on Facebook said something that really sums it up:
“It doesn’t matter whether you believe in God or not. 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.”
