A Vacuum Salesman Attended An Autistic Teen’s Birthday Party, Made Everyone’s Day

A Kirby vacuum salesman made an autistic teen’s day, and moved the whole room to tears. The salesman was able to do so by giving a special one-on-one demonstration to the vacuum-obsessed teenager.

Jodie Greene (NOTE: Some sources report the family’s last name as Green) tells Fox Cleveland that her son, Dylan, who has autism, has been obsessed with vacuums – particularly Kirby vacuums – since he was two years old.

“He spends hours every day watching videos on his tablet about different Kirby’s. When he isn’t watching videos about them, he is talking about them.”

Jodie wanted to make her autistic son’s 14th birthday a special one, so she and her husband decided to take a shot in the dark and contact the Kirby company via their Facebook page, to see if there was anything the company could do, according to WTVR Richmond.

“I am reaching out to you in hopes for an answer to an unusual request for my son who is autistic. He has always been obsessed with vacuum cleaners…”

Mrs. Green was clear that she was not interesting in buying a Kirby vacuum cleaner – a low-end model costs several hundred dollars. She was also clear that she was not interested in a freebie. She did, however, offer to compensate the salesman for his time, or perhaps work out another arrangement.

“I was hoping that I could pay a flat fee or thought that maybe if you have salesmen in training that needs to get in practice demos for training purposes.”

What happened next defied all expectations. The Kirby company sent Dylan a few souvenirs – a soccer ball, a hat, and a T-shirt with the company logo. But then Kirby salesman Al Archie showed up at the party to give the special-needs teen his own one-on-one Kirby demonstration.

Al, who has been selling Kirbys for 25 years, was impressed with the teen’s knack for understanding Kirbys.

“He knew more about the Kirby than I did. I have never experienced anything like that. I imagine it was like a sports fan meeting one of his idols, like Michael Jordan.”

After the demonstration came the biggest surprise of all: the salesman gave the autistic teenager his very own Kirby vacuum cleaner.

“I planned I wanted to do something for him. [It was] an opportunity to give something back.”

Jodie says the gesture moved the entire party to tears.

“There was not a dry eye in the house… It is amazing to see that there are really kind people in the world that are willing to do things that out-of-the-ordinary to make a child with special needs have a good birthday.”

The Kirby company joins the ever-growing list of businesses, sports teams, or other groups that have gone out of their way to imbue some joy into the life of a sick, dying, or special-needs child. Recently, for example, members of the Boston Bruins dressed as characters from Frozen to cheer up kids at a children’s hospital, according to this Inquisitr report.

As for Dylan: since his birthday surprise, Dylan’s mom reports that he has been “over the moon” about his new gift.

“I’m going to have the cleanest carpets in Chesterfield County.”

[Image courtesy of: WWBT]