Humans of New York is a popular Facebook page that at first set out to create a visual census of New York City in 2010. Now, it aims at capturing the human essence around the world.

On Thursday, HONY posted a photo of an Iranian man and his son. The caption below the photo reads:

“Today’s his tenth birthday. He’s a very emotional young man. He likes to solve other people’s problems. One time when he was five years old, he came with me to the store and we bought two pounds of fresh apricots. I let him carry the bag home. He walked a little bit behind me the entire way. After awhile, I asked him to hand me an apricot. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I’ve given them all away.’ I knew then that I was raising a humanitarian.” (Tabriz, Iran)

The photo has been liked over 500,000 times. 41,000 Facebook users have commented on the photo- including President Barak Obama.

What an inspirational story. One of the most fulfilling things that can happen to you as a parent is to see the values you’ve worked to instill in your kids start to manifest themselves in their actions – and this one really resonated with me. I hope this young man never loses his desire to help others. And I’m going to continue doing whatever I can to make this world a place where he and every young person like him can live up to their full potential. (And if I ever get to meet him, I hope he’ll save me an apricot!) –bo

The signature ‘bo’ at the end indicates that Obama personally wrote the message.