Woman Follows 5-Year-Old Girl Who Takes Leftovers from Her Grocery Store Every Day — Story of the Day

A grocery store owner becomes suspicious of a well-dressed girl who comes every day to her store to collect leftovers and decides to follow her. What she discovers along the way breaks her heart.

Kimberly Cook was busy restocking her grocery store one morning when her gaze was drawn to a little girl for the first time. Every day, she’d be there at the same time, collecting leftovers from the charity section outside the store – a bin where people frequently left food packets for the homeless – and would run away after filling a large bag with leftovers.

Kimberly thought the girl frequented there with someone, but she soon realized she was always alone. Furthermore, the 5-year-old was well-dressed and did not appear like someone who’d be eating leftovers. So she decided to approach her one day.

“Hello there! My name is Kimberly. I notice you come here frequently. What’s your name?”

The little girl looked terrified. Then she asked, “May I take some food from here? Please?”

“Of course, you can, sweetie. But I was just….” Before Kimberly could finish her sentence, the little girl turned away from her and began filling her bag.

Kimberly sighed. “You know if you need any help, I could help you. Are you alone at home? Are your parents sick?”

But the little girl ignored her as if she hadn’t heard her. “Sorry, I have to go,” she said then ran away with her bag full of food packets.

Kimberly had an unsettling feeling that something wasn’t right, so the next day, she waited for the girl to arrive. A few minutes later, she noticed she was at the bin again, collecting leftovers.

Kimberly waited for her to finish collecting food, and when she saw the girl leave, she asked her store manager to look after the store and quietly followed the girl in her car at a safe distance so she wouldn’t notice her.

She noticed her happily strolling through the streets, swinging the bag of food and turning into an alley. Kimberly waited for her to reach the end of the alley before driving into it. When she got to the end, she noticed the girl taking another turn, this time in a narrower alley where her car wouldn’t fit.

She got down from her car and began to follow the girl on foot. She noticed they were in a desolate area with nothing but dark, dingy old houses that hadn’t been repaired in months, if not years.

The little girl walked to the far end of the neighborhood until she came to a crop-filled field. She crossed the field and then...