High school seniors go viral after befriending lonely freshman

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    REIDSVILLE, N.C. (WGHP) — Bullying can be a problem in schools, but two Reidsville High School students are doing what they can to meet the problem head-on.

Demontez Canada and Tyvon Smoot heard about a freshman student whose sister had tweeted that he was feeling bad because he had been picked on and was eating lunch at the high school alone.

So the two upperclassmen wanted to turn a negative into a positive.

“We both decided to meet him the next day and go have lunch with him. He said he didn’t have any friends. So when we did that, he said we were heroes,” Canada said.

Smoot added, “He was excited because he didn’t have nobody to eat lunch with so we ate lunch with him on that same exact day.”

But then word about their act of kindness got out and calls from around the nation came in catching the two seniors by surprise.

Now, they’ve been interview by the Kelly Clarkson Show, Access Hollywood and network news programs who wanted to share their good deed.

And social media took notice as well with hundreds of thousands of people reading and sharing their story.

They’ve now started going to middle schools and talking to younger students, hoping to encourage them not to be the bully and to help others when they need it.

Their principal, Ann Mitchell, says the idea has caught on at the high school as well.

“Just today I had a group of female students who saw another student at lunch, they decided to be her lunch buddy,” said Mitchell. “And then I had another group of female students who saw another female student that didn’t have clothes and the kids already started collecting things for this other student. So we see now that its really going school-wide.”

For the friends, that is proof that there are a lot of opportunities to do good.

“I feel like we inspired other people to do what we’re doing too,” Canada said.

Smoot agreed, “Yeah. That’s how I feel like. What we did, we sent a message out on how being friendly can help somebody’s life.”

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