Thanks To The Kindness Of Strangers, A Mom Was Able To Take Her 'Bonus Kids' To Universal Orlando After Her Son's Passing
Strangers and companies came together to make this mom's dream come true for her son's closest friends.
Perfect Wave | Shutterstock In the midst of her grief over losing her son, a mom found solace in a group of kids whom she called her "bonus kids," who were her son's good friends. In an effort to show her appreciation, she wanted to pull together something special, and with the help of social media, she was able to give them the surprise of a lifetime.
A mom turned to TikTok for help celebrating her late son's best friends on what would have been his 20th birthday.
On March 19, Erika Hernandez made a TikTok video that got a response she never could have imagined. She made the video with a singular goal in mind — to do something special for her son’s closest friends, whom she lovingly called her “bonus kids,” to celebrate what should have been his 20th birthday.
According to reporting from NBC Miami, Hernandez’s son, Jovan, was murdered on September 1, 2023, in their hometown of Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Jovan was a victim of gun violence. Hernandez told the outlet how traumatic the tragic event was for her, saying, “To go to bed one night and have a loud pounding knock on your door at 3:13 in the morning to tell you that my son had been taken to the hospital is forever life changing.”
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Since then, Hernandez has posted countless videos on TikTok, using it as an outlet for her emotions. She decided to use her presence on the app to try to make a dream come true.
“Something told me, which I now know was probably my son, what do you have to lose?” she explained. “With zero expectations, I got in front of the camera and I made the video. I posted it, and the rest is history.”
To keep the pending surprise under wraps, Hernandez admitted that she blocked all of her bonus kids on TikTok so they couldn’t see the video. “This video can’t fail,” she said.
The mom made a plea in her video that tugged at viewers’ heartstrings and the generosity rolled in.
“On May 12 would have been Jovan’s 20th birthday,” she said in the TikTok. “My dream is to be able to take my son, Nas, and all of my bonus children to Universal Studios to celebrate Jovan’s birthday.”
She continued, “Jovan enjoyed amusement parks, and Universal Studios holds a special place in our heart because of his love for Spider-Man. But the reality is, taking eight to nine kids to Universal Studios is completely outside of my financial reach.”
Hernandez made it clear that she was not asking people for money. Instead, she asked them to watch the full length of the TikTok video so she could monetize it, in addition to tagging companies that might be able to help, like an airline.
The video went viral, and big companies stepped up to make the trip a reality.
The response Hernandez received was surely beyond anything she could have imagined. The video went viral, with millions of views and likes.
Multiple companies left comments on the video expressing their desire to help and telling Hernandez to check her DMs for more information on what they were offering.
The Orlando Informer offered to purchase their park passes. Spirit Airlines got on board to fly the crew. Lyft promised to get them to the airport. Instacart and Winn-Dixie provided snacks for the trip. Airbnb set them up with accommodations. Supergoop got them ready with all the sunscreen they needed, and TopGolf even offered to host the group at its Orlando location if they had some time away from the park.
Hernandez’s hopes came to fruition thanks to random acts of kindness.
Everything Hernandez could have hoped for and more happened, all because of the kindness of people she didn’t even know. NBC Miami reported that she, her son, and the bonus kids made the trip to Universal Studios from May 10 to May 13.
While her story made national news, the fact remains that small acts of kindness make a big deal in this world, and there's a very good reason why simply hearing this story makes you, for lack of a better description, feel warm and fuzzy. Kindness, as UCLA researchers found, is contagious.
Study participants were split into two groups. One group watched a video much like Hernandez's video, featuring a heartwarming interaction. The other group watched a video featuring an athlete doing parkour. After each being paid $1 for their participation in the study, researchers asked each individual if they were interested in giving some or all of their earnings to UCLA Mattel Children’s Hospital. Guess which group gave 25% more? Yup, the group that watched the kindness video.
Daniel Fessler, director of UCLA’s Bedari Kindness Institute, which conducted the research, noted, “Each of us is kind to someone, and therefore has the potential to be kind to everyone — even those with whom we differ.”
Hernandez's story puts that statement into action. It's a testament to the power of ordinary people coming together to help someone who’s hurting and in need.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
