Dad surprises late daughter's classmates with field trip to her favorite place in her memory

FLORENCE, Alabama -- The father of an 8-year-old girl who died in a car wreck recently came through with a special surprise to try to help her classmates heal at her Alabama school.

Jeremy Smith took 111 second graders on a field trip to a place called Sky Zone, where all the kids kicked off their shoes and got to jump around in areas like a pit full of foam.

Smith's daughter, Jaleia, would have been the 112th child.

For Jaleia's 8th birthday party last year, she and her friends bounced around on those same mats at Sky Zone. Three weeks later on Sept. 27, Jaleia was killed in a car wreck.

"Try to have as much fun as we can, but sometimes we can't have as much fun as we would have if she was here," classmate Mia Awwad told WHNT.

"I'm not going to say it's tough, I'm going to say I just wish my daughter could have been here with them. This is one of her places that she loved to come to," Smith explained.

Smith said he wanted to end the school year on a positive note, and that's why he paid for his daughter's classmates to join in on her favorite activity in her honor.