Bullying can be difficult at any time in life but for a kid, it can be an absolute struggle. Nobody knows this better than Daniel Gambrell, a fifth grader who has been having problems with bullying from other kids.
His mother, Katie, spoke about what he was going through and said Daniel wrote a letter in class about it. He ended up throwing the letter away because he was not up to doing anything with it, but things were about to take a turn.
When the janitor was cleaning that evening, he found the letter and it caught his attention. He thought it was homework that had been misplaced but when he saw the words on the paper, it touched his heart.
Daniel’s note talked about how lonely he felt and the night janitor, Ian Greenarch understood the feeling. He said that when he was in 5th grade, he also had people messing with him all of the time.
Ian recognized how much it would have meant to him if someone had stood in his corner. That is when he decided to do something special for Daniel.
He wrote a note back to him, letting him know that he was thinking about him and saying that he knew what it was like to not fit in with the other classmates. He went on to say that being yourself and being kind to others will take you very far.
After Daniel took the letter home and shared it with his mom, he had tears in his eyes. She couldn’t help but cry too, so she decided to share the letter on Facebook for the world to see.
The three of them have met since that time and they are documenting their journey together. They want people to know that they are not alone and that there are others who share the same journey as them.
You can learn more in this video: