Kim Lane works at the Jack Flash truck stop in Farina, Illinois. She’s no viral hitmaker, just a hardworking American who cares.
But recently she utilized her social media acumen to fix something any military family — shoot, any American family for that matter — could appreciate.
One day, not too long ago, a patron at the store she oversees came up to the counter and handed her something they happened to find while pumping their gas.
A doll.
Only, from the moment she laid eyes on it, Lane knew it wasn’t an ordinary figurine. Her common sense told her it belonged to a military family.
It was in camouflage, with a recorded message: “Hey buddy, it’s dada. I miss you and I love you.”
This from KDSK in St. Louis:
“I couldn’t imagine any other way of finding it, so I decided to put it on Facebook,” she said.
Within minutes of posting her plea, social media did its thing.
“It was nonstop,” she said. “Every time I looked at my phone there were more shares, more likes more comments”
A thousand likes and nearly 3,000 shares later, success.
“I looked back through the messages and actually spoke to the grandmother of the little boy,” Kim said.
The little boy is a 2-year-old named Grayson whose dad is a deployed soldier whose identity we promised to keep secret.
“With everything going on in the world right now it feels great that so many people are standing behind my husband and military people in general because they don’t really personally know him,” said Grayson’s mom, Ashley. “So it’s amazing to see social media and the world come together for something seemingly so small.”
Without further ado, Lane put the doll into a package to be sent back to its home, along with some other gifts for the boy and his family.
Here’s the message she posted on Facebook after it was all said and done: