An RCMP officer’s act of kindness has brought joy to the two young girls he helped and inspired an entire New Brunswick village.
On Friday afternoon, the Curtis family noticed their daughters’ two tricycles had gone missing from their driveway in Blacks Harbour.
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The tricycles belonged to Sawyer, 2, and her sister Ramsey, 4, who immediately became concerned about her missing trike.
“I thought, ‘Gee, that’s really heartless,” said their mother, Kristi Curtis. “It’s kind of mind-blowing.”
Curtis put a sign on the family’s window informing neighbours of the theft and then decided to file a report with the RCMP.
That’s when Const. Anthony Leighton comes in.
The officer arrived at the family home on Friday evening to take their statements and ended up befriending the young family.
“I went out and I met this beautiful family,” he said. “It broke my heart to know these two little girls had to go through this situation.”
So Leighton went home, and after speaking with his wife decided to go out and purchase two new trikes for the girls.
“This is not something I needed to do, this is something I wanted to do,” he said.
“I joined the RCMP (because) I love people, I love our communities. I like to see good in this world. I believe that one good contribution to our community will lead to another.”
Leighton made the surprise delivery to the young girls on Saturday and what followed, their mother says, was plenty of high fives and happy photos.
“My daughter Ramsey, she just started spinning around the yard. My other daughter, she’s so shy and she just kind of stood there and said, ‘Mine? Is it mine?'” she said.
“Him coming with two new bikes to surprise them, it just blew us away. It was just absolute genuine kindness. We’ve never had anything like that done for us.”
Leighton says his “heart was warm” after giving the children their new trikes and he’s even thinking of the thieves who took the original ones.
“I may never know the situation or understand why someone would have stolen those two little girls’ bikes,” he said. “Maybe they have children. Maybe someone needed bikes.”
Curtis says the story of Leighton’s gift has gone “viral” in their small village — racking up hundreds of online shares and kudos for the officer.
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Leighton also began receiving messages of praise from right across the province, and he says he hopes the story will only inspire others to pay it forward.
“We have such a great country. We have such great communities and we have such a great police force and members in it,” he said. “We are fortunate in this country to have such good people. This is the Canadian way.”
The girls rode their new tricyles at the playground all weekend and have been bringing them in at night for safekeeping — and also so they can ride them in the living room.
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