A group of strangers recently came together to sing "Happy Birthday" and make one young boy feel "super special" on his eighth birthday.
Mom Ashley Giselle Jeffords captured the heartwarming moment in a TikTok video post, which is quickly going viral with over 142,000 views in less than a week.
In the video, Jeffords' son James, seated at a picnic bench in a park, smiles in front of a cake decorated with a number 8 candle. A male voice says off-camera, "Come on, everybody," as three other children approach James. Then, Jeffords can be heard saying, "Alright, his name is James," as everyone breaks into the "Happy Birthday" song.
"I feel so blessed and made my son feel super special," Jeffords wrote in part in the video's caption.
Jeffords explained in a follow-up TikTok post that the moment from Jan. 2 was extra special and meaningful, because she had stayed up the night before, racking her brain trying to figure out how to mark her beloved son's birthday before settling on the idea of holding a celebration at the park.
"We went straight to the park and we find a bench next to this family. We pick it, sit down, and as I'm opening the cake and opening the packaging to the letter eight candle, the wife's husband notices that it's his birthday, and he asks us if it's his birthday, and I go, 'Yeah,'" Jeffords recounted.
The mom of one said her son was "so excited" by the gesture.
More than 1,700 TikTok users also commented on Jeffords' original video, many of them wishing James a happy birthday or asking how to contribute a gift.
Jeffords said she was touched by the response.
"I wanted to say that as a single mom who wishes for a family ... it means a lot to me that TikTok gathered together to wish my baby boy a happy birthday, and it's just really, really, really inspiring and so humbling, and I'm grateful," she added.
