Mom Asks 6-Year-Old Who to Invite to Her Kindergarten Graduation Party. She Picks Her Bus Driver
Mallie Courtney and her bus driver Don Allen are best friends
@hollypaigebratcher Ok so this was the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen. 😭😭😭 they acted like best friends! 🩷 #niece #auntie #kindergarten #sosweet #thecutest
♬ Bundle of Joy (From “Inside Out”) – Piano Version – Clavier & your movie soundtrack
NEED TO KNOW
- Mallie Courtney and her bus driver, Don Allen, see each other every morning and afternoon
- Recently, Mallie and her mom, Olivia, who live in Bradford, Tenn., were planning her kindergarten graduation party, when she said she wanted to invite Allen
- Right after they sent him an invitation, Allen responded
Mallie Courtney and her bus driver, Don Allen, see each other every morning when the 6-year-old heads off to school, and again every afternoon when her day comes to a close. They always start and end the day with a hug.
So, when Mallie and her mom, Olivia, who live in Bradford, Tenn., were planning her kindergarten graduation party, Mallie knew exactly who she wanted to invite: Mr. Don, as she calls him.
Right after they sent him an invitation, Allen responded that he’d love to come.
When the day of the party arrived, Mallie’s aunt, Holly Bratcher, traveled from Florence, Ala., to join the celebration. During the festivities, she noticed her niece sitting and laughing with a man she didn’t recognize.
“I asked her mom, ‘Who is that man?’ ” Bratcher recalls to PEOPLE exclusively. “And she told me it was her bus driver, and how much Mallie adores him. When she told me that Mallie had invited him to her party, I thought it was the sweetest thing!”
Throughout the party, Bratcher, 27, couldn’t help but notice how special their bond seemed. She kept looking over and seeing Mallie and Allen talking, laughing and playing games.
In the moment, she recalls thinking she needed to capture it on camera. Later, she told Olivia she was going to post the video on TikTok, never expecting it to go viral. But to her surprise, the video quickly struck a chord, amassing nearly 5 million views and more than 4,000 comments.
“When I went through the comments, I was amazed how everyone was coming together to share their own stories of people in the school system that made impacts on their life,” Bratcher, a stay-at-home mom, says. “One comment that stood out to me was someone mentioned their 10th-grade teacher later in life came to their mother’s funeral. He was 75 at the time, and they said they would never forget that.”
“My hope from this video is that in the broken world we live in, there are still good people,” she adds. “Genuine people still are here and want to help impact children’s lives and even older people’s lives. We live in a time of many sad things happening in the world, and seeing things like this gives comfort that with all the bad in the world, there is still good.”
And as for Mallie? She tells PEOPLE just how much it meant to have Allen at her party.
“I was so excited that Mr. Don actually came!” the 6-year-old tells PEOPLE exclusively. “I ran and gave him a hug and we ate together and played games and I gave him my cupcake because I didn’t want it.”
“He said he was proud of me and that he will see me Monday morning,” she continues. “I liked hanging out with him the most, we are best friends.”
As for her other favorite part of the celebration? As she says, “When I got to open my graduation gifts!”
