STERLING, Va. – When Washington Redskins football players Rob Kelley and Keith Marshall overheard a boy asking about the price of an Xbox video game system in a Virginia GameStop, they decided to surprise him.
“You want to help him out and get it for him?” Marshall asked Kelley, according to ESPN. The two decided to split the cost, but only after the boy, 10-year-old Jaden, got permission.
Jaden ran to find his grandmother, Saundra Watts, who was skeptical at first, according to the Washington Post. Watts works with children who have been abused and neglected, and she told the paper, “The first thought I’m thinking is there’s some pedophile trying to buy my grandson an Xbox.”
Watts said she had no idea the two were NFL players, but after talking with them she agreed.
A kid walked into a GameStop wearing a Kaepernick jersey. Two NFL players saw and bought him an Xbox. https://t.co/GkixtagTeS
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) September 29, 2017
The two running backs bought Jaden an Xbox and a copy of the game “NBA 2K18.”
“I’ve been in that place where I wanted something and couldn’t have it,” Marshall later told ESPN, “So it felt good just to be in a position to spare two, three hundred dollars to help a kid out.”
Another shopper who was in the Sterling GameStop that day wrote on Facebook that it was “one of the most amazing acts of kindness I’ve ever witnessed.”