A 6-year-old's hoop was stolen, and a police officer came to the rescue
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Six-year-old hooper Penelope likes to tell the story of the time she made 100 baskets in a row over a span of two days.
Her mom, Kate Allerding, says that story may be a little far-fetched, but she's happy to let her daughter tell it.
But last week, at least temporarily, Penelope wasn't able to shoot any baskets after her hoop was stolen from outside her home in Westbrook, Maine.
When Allerding noticed the hoop was missing, she called the local police department. They sent officer Jeffrey Stackpole, who was presented with Penelope's drawing of the robbery.
Stackpole had seen hoops stolen before and figured he could find it easily. So he drove around the area for a couple of hours. But when he couldn't find the hoop with the lime green net, he asked Kate for a picture of the hoop to attach it to the report.
But he really wanted the picture so he could know what the hoop looked like and then buy a new hoop at Toys R Us. And when he showed up with the new one, Penelope and her 12-year-old brother Shanon couldn't believe their eyes.
"She was so excited and so happy," Kate Allerding said of her daughter.
"I couldn't believe it," Allerding said of the act of kindness from Stackpole. "I teared up. I've never had anything like that happen.
"To have the officer go completely out of his way and do that for us because he felt like it was the right thing to do was amazing. I've just never experienced anything like that in my entire life. I didn't expect that at all. To have all of that happen in a span of a couple of hours was just so mind-boggling. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it."
Both kids made thank-you cards for Stackpole, who has a daughter himself and said he just did what he would have wanted someone to do for him.
"It seemed like the right thing to do," Stackpole said. "I just wanted to reassure them that there's good people out there."
The new hoop is now chained down. After the reveal, Allerding said Penelope was thrilled to get back to playing basketball.
Now she can make her 100-basket story come to life.
"She was so excited to be able to do that again," Allerding said. "And beat her record."
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