Helping the homeless, he learns lesson about giving
Every year on Christmas Eve, Kimberly Kerby and her son, Layton Lewis, are joined by volunteers to hand out new socks to the homeless. Their organization, Layton’s Light, has provided more than 20,000 pairs of socks since 2012.
“It was 2011. At the time I was a single mom, and I had lost my job. I was living with my mom, trying to get back on my feet. It was one of those Christmases that was really, really hard. He was at that age where he didn’t understand hardship. We had never really experienced it before. And he was really aggravated with me. He had asked for an Xbox or Playstation or something, and he was upset when I told him he wasn’t going to get it. So I decided I was going to try to teach him something.
“I took $50 out of my savings account — it was pretty close to the last $50 I had — and I went to Walgreens and bought a whole bunch of candy. When I went to check out, the lady behind the cash register asked what I was going to do with all that candy. I told her, ‘I’m going to teach my son a lesson.’ She said, ‘Are you going to make him eat it all?’ I said, ‘No, we’re going to pass it out to the homeless.’ The guy behind me thought it was a really good idea, so he gave me $20 toward it. And the lady behind the register also gave me $20. So I woke Layton up early on Christmas Eve and told him I had a surprise for him. We drove to downtown Houston, just me and him, to the area across from Minute Maid Park. And we just started handing out candy to the homeless people there, telling them merry Christmas. It was a really awesome experience.”
“I was pretty young at the time, but I remember the effect that it had on the people. To see them smile or tell us merry Christmas or give us hugs, that really stuck with me. For them, who didn’t have anything, to show that kind of gratitude for such a small thing as candy was pretty cool. There was one man in particular who told me how he really appreciated what I was doing. He asked if I made good grades in school. He asked if I had been good. And he made me promise to stay in school and always listen to and respect my mom, or else I might end up like him one day. He made me shake his hand in front of everybody that I would stick to that promise.”
“When we were walking back to the car Layton said, ‘I want to do this again. But I don’t want to pass out candy. I want to pass out socks.’ I was like, ‘Socks?’ And he said, ‘Yes. New socks make your feet happy.’ That’s what started it all.”
— Kimberly Kerby and her son, Layton Lewis
Related:
