The good guys thread

[kuhio98]

[kuhio98]

“Am feeling both good and a little stupid.” This is the comment Carolee Hazard posted on Facebook after a woman ahead of her in the grocery line said she’d lost her wallet. The woman was so upset that Hazard paid her $207 grocery bill “and just asked her to send me a check,” Hazard says. She figured now the money was as good as gone.
But a day later, a check arrived in the mail for $300, along with profound thanks from Jenni Ware, 45. Ware suggested that Hazard use the extra $93 for a nice massage.
Instead, Hazard went back online and asked her friends to recommend a better use for the money. Times are tough, one friend wrote back, and suggested a donation to Second Harvest, a Bay Area food bank.

Hazard agreed and then matched Ware’s original $93 with her own. Word spread. A little kid gave 93 cents. A single mother donated $9.30 from the last $25 in her monthly budget. By the end of its first year, the newly christened 93 Dollar Club had bequeathed $100,000 to Second Harvest.
But the story doesn’t end there. “We want to raise $200,000 this year,” says Hazard. And they just might. The 93 Dollar Club recently received a second donation of $9,300—its largest yet.

[kuhio98]

A Cup of Kindness
In college I had a job as a counter person. Every morning the same people lined up for their coffee. Eventually, whenever I saw a regular customer, I'd just hand over "the usual." On my last day at the job I mentioned to a couple of my regulars that I was leaving. They came back at lunchtime with a bouquet of flowers. That gesture made me feel as though I mattered, that I wasn't just another nameless, faceless service provider.
-- Sabrina Regan, Rosedale, New York

[kuhio98]

[kuhio98]

Four years ago, after hearing about a boy with a program to give away backpacks, Jacob Rice decided to do something similar for disadvantaged kids in East Tampa. A local social services agency tipped him off that kids’ shoes were needed, and Rice had found his cause. At his first event, a back-to-school night, 72 kids signed up for shoes.

Rice found a local store that agreed to provide him with shoes at a bargain price. It took private donors and a foundation to help, but eight months later, Rice was able to deliver every last one of the 72 pairs of shoes. Now Rice’s nonprofit charity, Shoe Giver of Tampa, works with Soles4Souls of Nashville, Tennessee, a group that collects and distributes shoes worldwide. Every few months, Rice measures dozens of kids’ feet and sends the sizes to Soles4Souls founder Wayne Elsey, who finds the shoes and has them delivered to Rice. Then Rice distributes them to the youngsters. To date, Rice has handed over more than 1,300 pairs of shoes, not only in East Tampa but also in the Dominican Republic and Liberia.
His current goal: to donate 10,000 pairs of shoes. “I’ve learned how important it is to help your community,” says Rice. “When you’re in a position to help, you have an obligation to do it.”

[kuhio98]

James’s story:
Several years ago we packed all we had into a storage unit back in the lower forty-eight and hopped a red eye flight to get to Valdez, Alaska – where we were headed. When we landed in Anchorage, we had no money and no way of getting the rest of the way to Valdez. We were hungry and didn't know what to do. Kindly, a stranger bought us pizza and sodas while we were stuck at the airport for nearly two days, until we were able to locate a friend living in Valdez. Despite being very sick with the flu, she drove for nearly seven hours through bad March weather to pick us up in Anchorage, then turned around and drove us all the way back to Valdez. She is a true friend and that has to be an act of kindness.

[kuhio98]

Frank Made My Friday

And I became a believer in the existence of random acts of kindness. I was sitting in my local Japanese restaurant waiting for my take-out order, passing the time playing a game on my iPhone, when a young man standing next to me struck up a conversation. I put down my phone and we spoke briefly about our lives, our jobs and when both of our orders were finished, he picked up my check and said, "I'm paying your bill." I was shocked and said, "WHAT!! Oh, no!" He said, "Oh, yes!" I sat at the table for a few moments completely dumbfounded, went up to him at the register and said, I don't even know your name. He responded, "Frank, and have a great weekend." In that moment, through that random act, a cynic became a believer.