After candy is stolen from front porch, local boy is caught on camera performing act of kindness
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IDAHO FALLS — Hayden Chapple didn’t know a camera was recording when he performed a simple act of kindness Halloween night that is now going viral.
The 11-year-old Idaho Falls boy was trick-or-treating with his mother, Heather, when they walked up to a home on Oxbow Lane.
“There was a little sign next to the candy bowl on the porch that said, ‘Do a trick and take a treat. And smile — you’re on camera,'” Heather Chapple tells EastIdahoNews.com.
The home belonged to Jesse Robertson. He and his wife were out trick-or-treating with their two daughters and didn’t want the entire bowl of candy stolen.
“We have a doorbell camera and put up a sign every year. It’s fun to go back and watch kids making funny faces and doing their tricks,” Robertson says.
When the Robertsons returned home, the bowl was empty.
The next day, they reviewed the video footage and noticed a child stealing all of the treats. For a moment, they thought about posting the clip on Facebook but then they noticed what happened a few minutes after the theft.
“A kid comes up and sees the bowl is empty. He jumps up, does his trick and starts walking off,” Robertson recalls. “But there are more kids coming behind him so he runs back and puts some of his own candy in the bowl.”
That kid was Hayden — dressed as Eleven from the popular show “Stranger Things”. His trick was a 360 degree turn followed by a jump off the porch.
Heather says as they walked away, her son noticed some younger children making their way to the front door.
“I told my mom that the kids were going to be so disappointed because there’s no candy in there,” Hayden says. “She told me I could put some of my own candy in the bowl and I thought that would be cool.”
Hayden grabbed some of the “good candy” from his bag — red and purple packaged Skittles and a Snickers bar — and the Robertson’s video shows him putting the treats in the bowl.
“I didn’t see the camera. I thought they wrote the sign to stop people and I thought that was clever,” Hayden says. “I just wanted to do a nice thing.”
Robertson decided to share the video of Hayden’s good deed on his Facebook page and by Thursday afternoon, it had been viewed nearly 20,000 times.
One of the viewers was Hayden’s uncle, who informed the young boy and his mother that thousands of people had seen his kind act.
“He’s pretty excited but it’s kind of shocking because it’s not really anything out of the ordinary for him,” Heather says. “He was just hoping the homeowners would have seen his awesome trick.”
Hayden says “it’s kind of weird” that so many people are interested in the video as he just wanted to help the younger children.
“Think about the other little ones that want that stuff. Little kids want the candy but if you steal all of it then you’ll make everybody else have a bad day,” he says.
Heather appreciates the Robertsons sharing the video and is glad a positive act is getting attention.
“They could have just as easily posted the video of the kid stealing the candy,” she says. “It was very nice of them to put up the positive video.”
Robertson adds, “It was a random act of kindness. You don’t see that kind of stuff now days. You see the kids stealing the candy — but this was really different. We thought it would be great to post something good. “