A birthday surprise for their middle school buddy

By Kristen Ray
Posted 4/8/20

Not even a global pandemic could rain on Alan Leach’s parade Friday night.

Though the 14-year-old was disappointed he could not celebrate his birthday like usual — getting ice cream …

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A birthday surprise for their middle school buddy

Posted

Not even a global pandemic could rain on Alan Leach’s parade Friday night.

Though the 14-year-old was disappointed he could not celebrate his birthday like usual — getting ice cream with his best friend, Cayden Sumner, over at Friendly’s, a tradition for the past six years — Cayden’s mother, Kim, still wanted to do something special to celebrate the big day.

“I said, ‘what could I possibly do?’ ” Ms. Sumner said.

The result: a drive-by car parade, full of Alan’s friends from the Best Buddies program at Kickemuit Middle School. With the help of the program’s director, Bonnie Pansa, the pair gathered 15 cars full of Alan’s friends, and they recruited the Bristol Fire Department to kick off the event. The Bristol Police Department offered its stamp of approval, so long as everyone stayed within their vehicles.

On Friday afternoon, Cayden gave Alan a video call, telling him that he would be seeing him soon. Ms. Sumner had not even told Alan’s mother, Linda, what she had planned — just to have Alan ready at the front door for around 5:45 pm.

“I said, ‘no questions asked, don’t ask me anything,’ ” Ms. Sumner said with a laugh.

So there Alan was, poised at his front door when all of a sudden, around the corner, a fire engine started to sound. The birthday parade had officially begun.

Car after car of Alan’s friends followed suit, some of them holding up signs or waiving streamers out their passenger windows. His father, Alan Leach, Sr., stood there stunned in the driveway, managing to videotape nearly the whole thing.

“It was just beautiful,” he said.

There at the tail-end of the parade was an “emotional” Ms. Sumner, with Cayden holding his own birthday sign out the back window.

“I was really glad we could pull it off and give him the best birthday that we could at this time,” she said.

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