Random Acts of Kindness

StepBoomer

P.S. chivalry is not dead, and it applies to men and women!!

DWilbanks

I want to go about this differently... instead of saying what I've done for someone else, I'd like to share a Thanksgiving story about how our family was helped one year.

When I was nine years old my father had disowned us and started living with his mistress. We got put out of our house and had moved into a one bedroom apartment. Picture 6 children (two of which were twins and in diapers) and one parent living in one a one bedroom. We didn't have money for groceries and it was Thanksgiving. The place where my mom worked took up food donations and money and paid our light bill and we had the best Thanksgiving ever. I still have pictures of all the groceries they gave us that year.

It's always made me look back and try to help someone else who's in need.

Froggy1976

This is one of my favorite subjects. I was in Navy bootcamp during Thanksgiving one year. They have an adopt a sailor program there and families from the area would come and adopt a sailor or a few for the day. The family that we got (there were 4 of us) took us to their house and fed us thanksgiving dinner. After dinner we all got a turn on the phone calling our loved ones at home. It was wonderful!
The other day my husband and I were leaving the art festival where my son had just had a performance with the Jazz band from school. We saw one of his classmates walking down the road, in his dress clothes carrying his trumpet and case. We stopped and gave the kid a ride, turns out he was going to walk about 4-5 miles to his grandmothers house. So glad we stopped, poor kid. I love to "pay it forward", it's such a good feeling.

jojopel

I have tears in my eyes reading all your posts.

Here's mine: About 10 years ago, my sister-in-law was having the family over for Christmas dinner and she also invited one of her friends who was going through a rough patch. The friend in question had a son who needed glasses and she had to borrow money from my sister-in-law to buy them and was supposed to reimburse my SIL in small weekly payments. I asked my SIL how much her friend still owed her and I reimbursed her.

NiciS72

We have a neighbor who is a single mom with 3 teenage kids. Since I can no longer eat Gluten and DH and I are on a healthy diet I needed to purge my pantry. I was going to freecycle the items but then thought better of it and offered the food to her. I asked her if she wanted to take the stuff of my hands as I could no longer use the food and didn't want to throw it out. She was extremely grateful and I ended up giving her 2 overflowing grocery bags as well as 3 very full DSW large bags!

A couple of weeks later my next door neighbor was telling me he had all these Dinty Moore meals that he got at job fair from that company. The fair wasn't well attended and they hadn't gotten rid of the food. The guy didn't want to pay to ship it back so my neighbor offered to take them. He had probably 100 meals. I said if he didn't want all of them I would offer them to the other neighbor since I know she's struggling (He would have done it but their son and her son have had some issues). Anyway, she got a large shopping bag full of the meals.

Sometimes I think we overlook those people we know. I'm trying not to do that. I also consciously think about how I would feel if approached and try and couch what I say so they don't feel like a charity case. I would say she's very receptive and grateful for the help, whereas I get a warm fuzzy from doing it!

Next!

rachelmorgan77

Hmm... I have three kids, and I find it so nice and considerate when I have all three at the grocery store and someone lets me go ahead of them. Bless you! Wrangling three small children in a public place is almost impossible. When I'm by myself, I try to return the favor.

My husband and I when we were first married went to a production of CATS. We were newly married, with not much money so we were in the second row from the top. At intermission, a lady came up to us and told us the show wasn't really her thing, and offered us her tickets. They were on the floor, maybe 3 or 4 rows back. What a nice thing to do.

This past Christmas a community member gave us her tickets to Mannheim Steamroller. She had four tickets, so we decided to take our two oldest kids, knowing we'd probably have to leave at intermission. When we got there we suddenly realized they front row seats!! We stayed for the entire show, my daughter charmed their socks off, and it was absolutely amazing.

We bought supper for a homeless person, my kids still talk about that experience, it left a lasting impression.

The oddest one was one morning (many years ago) my husband ran to Casey's to get coffee. While there, he met a man who was traveling to speak at a Sunday morning service at a local church (we live in a very small town so no stores were open). He had forgotten his dress pants, and my husband and him were the same size, so he ran home quickly and grabbed a pair for him to borrow.

Ricky1103

Thanks for such an inspirational thread. Cant wait to do something nice for a fellow human being..

cobracars

I love doing random stuff like this..the stunned, suprised, and truly grateful reactions are more than worth the effort.

I've paid tolls for the car behind me. I introduced myself to a homeless guy I always see walking the roads and highways around here. Bought him a McD's meal one time. Another time I found an envelope with $20 in a parking lot. It wasn't mine but there was no way I could identify who lost it. Next time I saw the homeless guy it became his.

On a smaller scale, every time I go into the grocery store or Home Depot I always bring in at least one shopping cart from the parking lot, sometimes 3-4. The lot attendants seem to really appreciate it, helps make their day!