BOY, 11, MOWED LAWNS TO BUY HEADSTONE FOR DAD HE NEVER MET

An 11-year-old North Dakota boy mowed lawns to buy a headstone for the biological father he never met.

The headstone for the unmarked grave of Brandon Bakke’s father was placed at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois, on October 20, 2016, ABC7 Chicago reported. Brandon, 11, of Fargo, had spent the summer working to make it happen.

“When I found out my dad’s grave didn’t have a stone, I got really sad and thought if I did something for him, he’d be proud,” Brandon told Today.

Brandon was adopted at birth, and he began asking his adoptive family about his biological parents. In June, his adoptive mother, Brandy Bakke, found his biological sister, Tiffany, on Facebook, KSL reported.

Tiffany told the family that Brandon’s father had died the year before, at 56, after an asthma attack. He was buried in Chicago without a headstone because relatives could not afford one.

How a lawn-mowing summer became a memorial

Brandon already had $175 saved from mowing lawns. “I am going to spend that on a gravestone,” he said.

Then he learned that wasn’t enough. He expanded his business, mowing for neighbors and strangers alike, and by the end of the summer he had raised nearly $400, FOX 5 New York reported.

Dakota Monument, in South Fargo, worked with Brandon on the design. The company was impressed by his work and determination, and it donated the stone instead of taking his money.

The memorial shows two hands offering a bowl of soup, a nod to his father’s generosity and love of cooking.

“That was his way of connecting with his dad,” Brandy told InsideEdition.com.

“I don’t think anybody should go unknown in life,” Brandon told WDAY. “If he could see it, he would be proud of me.”

What happened next

Brandon and his mother traveled to the Chicago area to meet his father’s relatives at the cemetery.

When they saw the finished stone, Brandon rushed to hug his mother, and both cried tears of joy and thankfulness, WFTV reported.

“It makes me feel very proud, as a son,” Brandon said.

Brandon later started a project called “Mowing and Blowing for a Purpose,” meant to help families who cannot afford memorial stones.