Baller Alert It's a lifestyle!
We need more people like this. FedEx driver Aubrey Robinson is being praised for purchasing a new basketball and hoop for a young boy.
Robinson made regular stops in a southeastern Indiana rural neighborhood. She noticed 11-year-old Elijah Maines playing with an old rusty and bent basketball hoop.
She pondered on it for months before going ahead and buying the young boy a new set. She then had the hoop installed while the boy’s family wasn’t home, CNN reported.
“Just wanted you and your son to have the best hoop that’ll grow with him and all his friends,” she wrote, signing it as “just one of the FedEx drivers in the area,” the note she left along with her surprise read. Weeks went by before Robinson returned to the area after leaving the gift.
Now the FedEx delivery woman and the boy’s family have formed a special friendship of a memory that will last forever.
“It was crazy to me how happy he was with the bent up, broken hoop. Every time I saw him, he was so joyful playing basketball. Seeing him so happy stuck with me,” Robinson told CNN. “I just wouldn’t stop thinking about it, I really wanted to get him a hoop. I was like, ‘Is that weird?’ But then I just said, you know what, he deserves it, I’m getting him a hoop.”
The gift came at a heartfelt time; the Robinson’s had been through a difficult year. Four members had died, his mother’s boyfriend was seriously hurt, and she had wrecked her car.
Robinsons’ gift “changed their lives,” Coledo Wheeler, Elijah’s mom, told CNN. “I read the note, and the moment I realized who it was from, I just immediately started to cry,” Wheeler said.
“When Elijah came home, and I showed it to him, he got really emotional. He got teary-eyed, but he’s an 11-year-old boy, so he really didn’t want to admit he was crying,” she laughed. “He just sat there for 10 minutes staring at the ball until it really touched him that she went out her way to do something just for him.”
Elijah had been playing with the same basketball set since he was two years old. According to his mother, he wouldn’t miss a day without playing basketball.
“I can’t describe how much I love basketball,” Elijah told CNN. “When I saw she got me a new hoop, I was shocked, just totally shocked. My head was racing. It was crazy she randomly did it for me when she could have done it to anyone else.”
As for Robinsons’ act of kindness, FedEx also released a statement: “FedEx Ground is proud of the many contributions our team members and vendors make to our communities every day,” FedEx spokesperson David Westrick told CNN. “We commend the thoughtful and generous actions of Aubrey Robinson of Reznor Corp., a service provider employee who went above and beyond to help Elijah get a new basketball hoop.”
