Jenn Bourque was so excited about the great deal she got on a new TV at BestBuy.com that she wasn’t even upset when it arrived with a shattered screen.
She simply drove to her local store in Lafayette, Louisiana, to exchange it. And while she was there, she decided to upgrade to a nicer model.
One problem: She didn’t have her wallet, and she was $7.82 short on cash.
“I’ve got it,” the store associate, Kentrell Balthazar, said to her surprise.
And, sure enough, he took out his wallet and paid the balance himself.
“I was floored,” Jenn said. “I was like, ‘Why? Why would you do that?’ He handled it like he knew me forever, and I’ve never met the kid before. He didn’t have to do that.”
His simple reply? “You were nice.”
Jenn and her fiancé stopped by the store later to repay Kentrell. But she was so inspired by his unexpected act of kindness that she posted about it on social media, where it received more than 13,000 likes within just a few days.
“I didn’t expect all this,” Jenn said.
Neither did Kentrell. After all, he said he just wanted her to be able to bring that TV home to her family without having to make an extra trip.
“I just thought if it was my mom, I’d want someone to do that for her,” he said. “So, I just thought paying it forward was the right thing to do in that situation.”
And Kentrell hopes the story might inspire others to do the same.
“Be kind, be human, take care of people,” he said. “You never know when someone’s going to need an extra little bit of help. Do what you’d want someone to do for your family.”