For many kids, the chance of collecting as much candy as they could on Halloween is what makes the holiday so exciting.
Aside from showing off their costumes, strolling the neighborhood to go trick-or-treating with friends is the highlight of the night.
But for a trio of trick-or-treaters in Rhode Island who came upon an empty bowl on a neighborhood porch, the situation was worth giving up some of their candy for.
Kristen Wells left a bowl of treats on her front step as she took her kids out to trick-or-treat. Hoping to make it fair for all the children, she left a note on the front door with the instructions, “Please take 2. Leave the rest for another guest. Happy Halloween!”
The bowl was filled to the brim with chocolate bars, as seen in a photo she shared on Facebook. But when they came home that night, she noticed something unusual in the nearly empty candy bowl.
via Lisa Kitchen
“We were going in the house, I looked in the bowl [and] there were a few pieces. It wasn’t any of the type of candy that we have, so I’m like confused like, ‘How did this get here?’” she told WJAR-TV.
Kristin had a Ring doorbell camera and decided to check the footage for that day to solve the mystery. It made her sad seeing several children take way too many candies from the bowl, but she became hopeful when she saw three boys do something generous.
When the trio saw the empty bowl, they took candy out of their own bags and dropped them in for the other kids to enjoy!
You can even hear their adorable banter as they contemplated what to do. At first, the boys decided to turn the bowl upside down so that others would know it was empty—until one of the kids came up with a better solution.
“Guys, we should put some candy there … for other trick-or-treaters,” said Jack Bringer. One of his friends balked at that suggestion, but the other agreed, so they grabbed some sweets from their own stashes and dropped them in the bowl.
After seeing too many children take way more than two candies and hearing not-so-nice stories about kids taking entire bowls of treats, seeing the generosity of those kids was a breath of fresh air.
Kristin wanted to know who the trio was and recognize them for their good deed, so she posted the story on Facebook along with a screenshot of the trick-or-treaters, hoping someone would be able to identify them by their costumes.
“I’d love to send the video to their parents and maybe get permission to share the video,” Kristin wrote in her post. “After all the posts I’ve seen about kids taking entire bowls, I think even more that this story needs to be shared.”
The post reached the kids’ parents, and they granted Kristin permission to share the video on Facebook. The footage even caught the attention of the local news channel, which asked to interview the boys.
Jackson Panciera and Jack Bringer, both age 10, and their buddy, Andrew Kitchen, 11, talked to WJAR about that Halloween night.
“We walk up, none of us looked down at the bowl yet, we all just standing there reading the sign to ourselves and then we all looked down at the exact same time and we’re like — ‘There was nothing’,” Andrew recalled.
“We started to walk away and then [Jack] says, ‘You know, we should put some candy in there for other trick-or-treaters’.”
So what made them decide to share their own sweets?
“I was like, ‘Guys, we should put in candy because there could be other trick-or-treaters that could come by,” said Jack. “Honestly, we’re all done with COVID and candy is the best thing we could do to help everyone.”
We could all use a little happiness, especially after what we’ve been through, and these generous boys surely gave us that!
Here’s the sweet moment caught on camera.
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