A Wyoming community rallied to rescue a little girl's seventh birthday party when the 15 kids she invited all backed out.
More than 150 residents of Cody, population 10,305, responded to a desperate Facebook post by Chloe O'Donnell's mom to help save her daughter's special day.
"I’ve learned this town shows up for people,” Melanie O'Donnell told the Cowboy State Daily website. “We came from a larger city, and this is the kind of thing that would never have happened there.”
Chloe's party was set to be held in Cody's Mentock Park on July 12 and she invited new friends she made after her family moved to the city in January.
But cancellations still rolled in, with most parents reportedly citing concerns over the heat.
“When the last kid finally said that they weren't coming, we had already set up at Millstone,” O'Donnell said. “Our decorations were out, I’d bought this big cake and we were all sitting in the downstairs arcade center by ourselves.”
The crestfallen mom said she wanted "so badly" for Chloe to have a good time that she posted a message to Facebook's Cody Area Classifieds group inviting people to the party.
Multiple families RSVP'd within 15 minutes and said they were on the way, and many arrived bearing birthday presents — including one little boy who O'Donnell said had "shopped in his room for something she might like and put it in a gift bag."
A man in Red Lodge, Montana — over an hour away by car — even sent $25 by Venmo to pay for a gift, saying in a message that "I obviously cannot come down, but I have grandkids," O'Donnell said.
The party turned into a smashing success, with O'Donnell saying, "The people who showed up were complete strangers, but they all acted as if they had always known each other.”
“The children were so sweet and well-behaved. Chloe had an amazing time,” she said.
A similar situation unfolded earlier this year in Kingsville, Texas, where Samantha Chamberlain used social media to save her daughter Eisley Marquez’s ninth birthday party at a local Pizza Hut.
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