After he gets out of school every day, Jackson Lounsbury jumps on his bicycle and explores his new hometown of Scottsboro.

Jackson and his mother and younger brother just moved to town a few months ago, but it didn’t take him long to discover Payne’s Soda Fountain, the ice cream shop that has served this northeast Alabama town since 1865.

Now, hardly a day goes by that Jackson doesn’t stop by Payne’s for an ice cream cone.

Usually chocolate. Some days, chocolate and vanilla.

“I moved down in January and the boys came down in February and started school,” Jackson’s mom, Heather Lounsbury, says. “That’s when Jackson fell in love with Payne’s.

“He gets out of school, gets off the bus, comes home and that’s like the first thing that comes out of his mouth: ‘I’m gonna go to Payne’s.’”

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Jackson usually paid for his ice cream with money he earned from doing odd jobs for his mother’s friend Daniel Johnson.

But when he ran out of that spending money, he dipped into the coin collection that his grandmother had passed along to him.

Unbeknownst to Jackson, those old coins were worth a lot more than their face value.

Lisa Garrett, who owns Payne’s, did, however, recognize their value, and she quietly started to put them aside.

“One of them was an Eisenhower dollar coin, and I have not seen one of them in at least 30 years,” Garrett says. “I think one of the other ones was a Bicentennial Kennedy half-dollar. I just hung on to all of them.”

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Then, one day this week, when Jackson stopped by for his afterschool ice cream cone, Garrett had a surprise present waiting for him for his 13th birthday, which was a couple of weeks before.

She collected all his coins and put them in a box, along with notes on how much each coin was worth and a personalized birthday note from her to him.

“Happy 13th Birthday!” she wrote. “Just wanted to give these back to you so you could do a little research. Also, when I was your age, my grandmother gave me almost the same coins, and I regretted forever spending them.

“They are truly a treasure, and I think you should have them back. Next time you need to spend them, I want you to know their worth, and years from now, you may want to share them with your family.”

Garrett even threw in a few vintage coins from her own collection, along with a fistful of two-dollar bills that she had collected from customers over the years.

“I added some extras so that he could have a little collection,” she says. “I love coins myself now, and when I was kid, when I was about his age, I didn’t understand it.”

Jackson, a seventh grader at Scottsboro Junior High School, was so excited that he called his mother, who was having dinner with Daniel Johnson. Jackson also texted her some pictures of the coins.

“He’s like, ‘Mom, I just got back from Payne’s, and you’re not going to believe this,’” Lounsbury recalls. “’They gave me a birthday present.’

“He sent the pictures, and I was at a loss for words. I looked at Daniel, and I said, ‘I can’t believe the generosity of someone.’ I mean, how absolutely beautiful of a person to do something like this. It’s incredible.

“She took the time to actually research these coins,” Lounsbury adds. “That in itself is just a testament of what type of person she is.”

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Johnson later shared the story on the “What’s Happening in Scottsboro, AL” Facebook group page, and it has since gotten nearly 1,000 shares.

“What an amazing testament to our small community, a local business and an amazing woman that took the time to touch the heart of a family,” Johnson wrote. “This family only recently moved a thousand miles to relocate to our small town. A safe place to start over. A place where people speak . . . where we help one another.”

Garrett never intended for her act of kindness to go viral. She just wanted Jackson to get his coins back.

“He came in Wednesday, and I told him, ‘I’m so sorry. I hope you’re not embarrassed because I’m embarrassed,’” she says. “That was just supposed to be a note between me and him.

“I’m not one of those people who believes in doing something nice for somebody and taking a picture of it. I didn’t ever think anybody else would ever see that.”

Lounsbury and her boys were already grateful for the hospitality shown them since they moved to Scottsboro from Middleburgh, N.Y., earlier this year.

Jackson’s experience at Payne’s Soda Fountain – and the kindness of the ice cream shop’s owner — is the cherry on top.

“The wholesomeness and just the goodness and generosity of people in the South, I am overwhelmed,” Lounsbury says. “I love it. It’s beautiful.”