NewsNation

Little girl makes friends with grocery store employee

(NewsNation) — Fiona, a little girl from Florida, doesn’t know the name of her favorite Publix worker.

It’s Gilnet, but instead of that, Fiona just calls her friend “High Five” because he gives her one, or a smile, or a hug, whenever he sees her at the grocery store.


Fiona looked forward to seeing Gilnet at Publix every week, her mom, Rachel Smith, wrote on a GoFundMe page.

Gilnet even got Fiona a bicycle for her birthday, which prompted Smith to start the GoFundMe, to “give something tangible back to him for the unquantifiable joy” he’s given her daughter.

Recently, Smith posted a video online of Fiona giving Gilnet a thank you card for her new bike. That video, which shows Fiona giving Gilnet the card and getting an embrace in return, has 4 million likes on TikTok as of Wednesday morning.

In the comments of the fundraising page, people reminisced about their own “High-Fives,” with people describing employees they met at stores like Target, or Publix, who made their day brighter.

“What a great example this sweet relationship is to all of us,” one woman wrote. “A smile, a bit of kindness, a High Five…we can each freely give these things.”

So far, the GoFundMe has raised $8,135, a few thousand past its $5,000 goal.