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Company, NewsChannel 3 viewers offer to help after tablet is stolen from boy with autism

Posted at 7:56 PM, Mar 20, 2013
and last updated 2013-03-21 06:24:16-04

Virginia Beach, Va. - Three-year-old Bracken will soon get to play his favorite fishing game again after someone swiped his Nabi learning tablet.

Click here to read the previous story.

Bracken has autism and the tablet had special developmental apps on it.

After NewsChannel 3 reported it Tuesday night, the company Nabi took action to help Bracken.

In a comment on our website, they wrote:

"We’re so touched at how the Nabi tablet has positively impacted Bracken's life and we want to help! We will replace Bracken's tablet for him at no cost."

NewsChannel 3 caught up with Bracken and his mom, Mindy Kopenhafer, to tell them the good news!

"Wow,” she said. “I'm going to cry. It's wonderful. It's very touching that they would do that."

But Nabi wasn't the only one taking action. Kopenhafer says one NewsChannel 3 viewer came to her store, The Thrify Baby, and handed her an iPad to give to Bracken. She tried to give it back.

"I was insistent and said thank you very much,” she says. “You know, I greatly appreciate this, but we can't accept this from you and he said that he was not going to take it back. He did not have a need for it and if anything else to pay it forward."

And that's exactly what she's doing.

"We’re going to donate the iPad to the Autism Society, to where it can go to an older child with a communication or speech delay,” Kopenhafer says.

But the giving didn't stop there.  Another NewsChannel 3 viewer took action also!

"She gave him in a Thomas the Train gift bag with a brand new Nabi tablet, Kopenhafer says. "When I took it out of the bag [Bracken] said 'go fishing!' and he wanted to start it up."

After talking to Nabi, Kopenhafer and the company have decided to donate the second learning tablet to another child in need.

The generosity has come full circle.

"What ended up being something so horrible and negative has turned into something so completely positive that I can't even express it,” she says. “Hopefully soon we'll find out who the tablets are going to and we'll enrich somebody else's lives as well."