By Shelby Brooks
A simple act of kindness in a Pakenham supermarket has gone viral, spreading joy across the world.
Tynong North’s Dave Gamble shared a photo of his eight-year-old son Tim helping a Coles worker at Cardinia Lakes stack biscuits on the shelves.
He simply wanted the employee, who he later found out was dry goods manager Shane, to receive recognition for the joy he brought to Tim, who is non-verbal and living with autism.
The post has since made news headlines in Australia, Japan, the UK, Spain and Slovakia.
“It’s all gone a bit nuts,“ Dave told Star News.
“I think the most amazing thing is how obviously the world is craving good stories at the moment.“
Dave explained that while on a shopping trip with Tim on Thursday 9 September, they noticed Shane restocking biscuits.
“Tim a) loves biscuits and b) loves stacking things so he become intrigued by what Shane was doing,“ Dave said.
“Shane then showed him how to put a packet on the shelf and they then did the whole box.
“It was just a really nice moment.“
Dave had taken the photo of the moment to share with partner Caroline but decided to put it on Facebook as well to try thank Shane.
“It’s made the news in Spain, in Japan, we’ve had UK friends tell us they’ve seen it too. The things that I’ve seen forwarded to me, out of thousands of comments I’ve seen maybe six that were negative which is just amazing in the troll filled world of social media,“ Dave said.
“I mean, at its heart it was really such a simple act of kindness that I thought deserved some recognition by Shane’s bosses and now we’re here. The photos were just a habit my wife and I have, as Tim can’t tell us much about what he does so we take photos all the time of what he is doing for the other one to see.
“Tim of course has no idea any of this has happened but if he did understand any of it he’d be absolutely delighted. He adores making people laugh and smile.“
Dave said he was pleased Shane from Coles was receiving some of the attention too.
“Shane is getting heaps of good recognition too. For me that’s almost more exciting because Shane is a really nice guy,“ Dave said.
Coles chief operations officer Matt Swindells recognised Shane with a ‘Coles Appreciate a Mate’ award last week.
“We went in shopping last week and Shane came out and said hi to Tim and gave him a Tonka truck off the shelf,“ Dave said.
