Peanut Butter Loving Kid Donates It To Unpaid Federal Workers

Eric McKay loves peanut butter, especially Lidl’s peanut butter and now he’s sharing his favorite food with federal employees who aren’t getting paid during the government shutdown. The 15-year-old from Woodbridge, Virginia has autism, goes by the nickname “Bean,” and eats peanut butter on toasted English muffins three times a day. And after a recent social media challenge, he’s got a ton of it, so he’s spreading the love.

Last year, Lidl had a sale on its store brand peanut butter for 78-cents a jar and Bean’s mom stocked up, buying 72 jars of it. When he finished all of them, he tweeted a photo of the empty jars to the supermarket chain. Lidl gave him another 72 jars and offered him a sweet deal: if he could get 72,000 retweets, they would give him a lifetime supply of his beloved peanut butter. His campaign for retweets got a boost from British author Neil Gaiman and recently hit that goal.

After his win, Bean wants to donate a portion of his haul to federal workers affected by the shutdown – his own dad is a furloughed federal employee. So thanks to this peanut butter loving teen, any federal employee who isn’t being paid during the government shutdown could stop by the Lidl store in Dumfries yesterday (Wednesday) to claim up to three jars of Bean’s peanut butter for free. No word yet on how many takers there were.

Source: WTOP