All treats, no tricks: Sacramento kids go viral after filling empty candy bowl with their own Halloween haul
SACRAMENTO -- It's all treats, no tricks in a Halloween video now going viral. It has been seen by millions of people across several different social media platforms.
The home surveillance video captures the moment Sacramento trick-or-treaters come across an empty candy bowl.
"There's no candy!" the kids can be heard yelling out from the bowl.
That is when the group chimes in with a sugar-sweet idea.
"Don't worry. Let's leave candy for other people. Come on, guys. Yeah. Let's be nice. Come on, guys," the children can all be heard saying on camera.
The empty candy bowl didn't stay that way as the group dished out the candy from their own Halloween haul to help fill it up.
"It's like the sweetest thing ever," said Jamie Lim, the homeowner who captured it on her home surveillance camera.
The interaction filled her with joy. She knew she had to share it with her neighbors and took to social media.
"I thought it was so innocent, really pure-hearted. Honestly, I kept replaying it because their reactions were so adorable," Lim said.
She did not expect the video to get more than a few hundred views. As of Thursday night, it had tens of millions.
Lim didn't know these kids in the video, but she does now. After connecting with the family through the power of social media, she invited them over to tell their mom, Rosalia Martinez, that she had done a great job raising her children.
"I actually got teary-eyed. As a single mom, sometimes I'm like, 'Am I doing enough? I need to do more for my kids.' It was just nice to see. A pat on the back like, 'You're doing all right,' you know?" Martinez said.
CBS13 asked her kids, Isabelle and David Lopez, to explain their now-viral kindness.
"I just saw the empty bowl and I thought about the kids," David said.
"My mom talks to us about being kind to others and you will be treated the same. Just kind of be nice and it will come back to you," Isabelle said.
Rosalia told CBS13 that she just teaches her kids to be kind and grateful for everything that they have, no matter how small. After she saw the video, she told them this: "You guys are so awesome and I'm happy to see that even if I'm not near you, you guys are making the right choices," Rosalia said.
In a world where we see a lot more tricks than treats – for example, video after video of entire Halloween candy bowls being stolen in the Sacramento area – it's a reminder to be like Isabelle and David.
"There are kids that are sometimes mean and some kids that are nice. I want to be a nice kid," David said.
By giving back, they got to take, too. They reached into the bowl and took one piece after they filled it up.
"Of course we had to take one!" said Isabelle with a laugh.
"Because it said 'Grab one,' " David said of the sign on the bowl.
It's kindness that adds up to an A+ on this test of Halloween integrity.
