Mom says Tradehome employees acknowledged her autistic son for 'the first time'

A Perham mom's Facebook post has gone viral after she shared her positive shopping experience, including the way employees treated her autistic son.

Kari Potrament says a quick stop into Tradehome for some new kicks last week, turned into the best shopping experience she's ever had with her son, Shane.

"From there, everybody in the store addressed Shane. And didn't ask me, 'What kind of shoes does Shane like? What does Shane need?' They said, 'Shane, what do you want?' Which, that's not something that's a common occurrence," Potrament said.

Kari says people usually don't acknowledge Shane and only refer to her as Shane's decision maker.

"It's like, this is kind of sad that he's 19 and this is the first time that someone's asking Shane a direct question other than friends and family," Potrament said.

"It brought me to tears because that's not the way it should be. Shane's an awesome person. I would love to help 10 of Shane everyday," Josh Melo, Tradehome's manager said.

Josh adds that it was just a normal work day for him, not even thinking twice about the way he treated Shane.

"He's got a sense of style, he knows what he likes," Melo said.

And now Shane has a Tradehome name tag to sport, to remember the workers who actually took the time for him—Which is all Kari has ever wanted for her son. She says it's also why she shared their shopping trip on Facebook.

"I think that a lot of people agreed with that. And a lot of people were glad to see that Shane was treated like that—Like the real person that he is. He was seen and that made me happy," Potrament said.

Kari says Shane might be able to actually wear that name tag soon.

They're working on getting Shane a job stocking shelves at Tradehome within the next couple months.