Search Results for 'popular' (2974 matches)

Giving A Gift Card

I was leaving Walmart the other day and saw a young man standing by the exit. He was holding a sign that read, "Even 50 cents would help."  

My heart went out to him because he looked to be the same age as my son. I didn't want to give him money, so I decided to drive to McDonalds (about a mile away) and get him a gift card.  

$3 And A Smile

I always carry at least $3 in my car and also in my pocket. I save it for the first person who asks if I can "spare some change". Smiling and maintaining eye contact, I always respond very cheerfully with a comment like, "Yes, I would love to" or, "It would be my pleasure". And I give them the $3.    Then I replace it with my next $3 for the next person. I never spend this money myself. I honor the idea that it is the possession of the next person who asks for it. Three dollars is a small amount, yet it means a lot to the person who might only expect 25 cents, especially when delivered with respect.   I have also taken to carrying items I think the needy may be able to use. I carry hats, socks, gloves, and an umbrella. Recently I put together some care packages for ... Read Full Story >>

Breakfast For A Tired Mom

I went through a drive-through this morning to get breakfast.  I saw a woman behind me in line.  She looked really tired and had a couple of kids with her. 

I pulled up to the window and told the clerk I wanted to buy her breakfast and asked him to give her my Smile card.  He seemed moved and said he would.

As I was waiting to pull into traffic, I paused long enough to see the clerk hand the woman in the car behind me the card and point in my direction while she stared in disbelief.  

Then I pulled out and continued on my way, my car windows open, my hair blowing in the long-awaited cool breeze, my favorite music playing.  The morning seemed even sweeter than before.

Witnessing a life lived with a different set of rules

I realize that we all live in a world where mutual trust is in short supply. Seems like everywhere I go, I have to prove my identity and trustworthiness - whether it's a bank, shop or any office. I have been conditioned to live by the rule that, no one is trustworthy unless proves otherwise. I need proof for everything. Yesterday I saw a young man who lived by a totally different set of rules. I was walking along a busy intersection. I had just gotten out of  a crowded ATM to take out some money. I was very careful to make sure no one was standing  behind me or  was looking over my shoulder not even  too close to me to be able to see what I was typing into the ATM machine. I came out into the street and noticed a young man standing near the pedestrian crossing selling toys and trinkets. Normally I ... Read Full Story >>

Lesson from the Check-Out Line

A little part of me thought about going to another checkout line. This one had the shortest queue, there was only one guy in it, but he was in a wheelchair and there seemed to be some complications going on. Well, I stamped on that little part, and we stepped in behind him. At first, he seemed to be having difficulty getting his groceries onto the conveyor belt. But after a while, I realized that what he was actually doing was separating it into two lots. Still, getting the stuff up there was no easy task in itself. I offered to help, but he and the checkout lady had it under control. He asked Julie if she would mind putting his empty basket away. Then he reached for his wallet which was in a pouch on one side of his chair. The way he was positioned and the fact he only had ... Read Full Story >>

18 Holes Of Happiness

There is a golf course a couple miles from where I live and I used to go fishing at a pond there, usually first thing in the morning.    There used to be a guy named Daniel who would come every morning and do maintenance work. It's an 18 hole golf course, really big. He had a morning routine of things he had to do including mowing the grass, putting up the flags at each hole, etc.    He's a really nice guy. We often chatted about different things and we got used to seeing each other there. This morning, I decided that I would do something for him. So, I drove down to the golf course at about 6:30 am and got all the flags for the golf course (which they keep outside by the clubhouse) and went and put them up at each of the holes. This is one the main things ... Read Full Story >>

My Mother's Simple Lesson in Kindness

  It's easy to see how to help some people, but what about those whose needs are not so obvious? This story may have happened a while back - but it was a lesson which has stayed with me and helped me ever since.   It was Thanksgiving and I was volunteering with my parents at a shelter for the needy. We stood behind the counter dishing out hot food to whoever came in. Most of our diners looked like they had been having hard times, their clothes were threadbare, they were dirty. In short, they looked needy!   Then, a man came in, who looked anything but needy. He was well groomed, he wore an expensive suit. I wondered what he was doing there and my jaw dropped in amazement when he joined the line for food. The closer he came to my service station the more I muttered. What was this man doing, I wanted to ... Read Full Story >>

Share A Smile

When I was in middle school,I got mad at my parents because they would never give anything to the homeless that would pass us by. On a family vacation in Washington DC there was a homeless man down the street who would say the same thing "food, money, a smile?" My family always walked past with our eyes at our feet. On our final day in the city, when my parents went for an evening walk I snuck out of our hotel room and ran down the street to the homeless man. He looked at me with curiosity, surely not expecting anything from a middle school girl. I asked him what he would have for dinner if he could have anything in the world. He replied 'lunchables'. I ran into the grocery store down the block and bought 5 lunchables, 3 bags of chips, one chocolate bar, my favorite candy, 1 smoothie, 1 ... Read Full Story >>

Doubling the Gifting

Having experienced the joys of giving small gifts to others through regular random acts of kindness, I have increasingly questioned whether I was truly being generous or whether I was seeking ego-gratification or some sort of karmic credit to justify living an otherwise ordinary life.  To test this concept, I asked myself if I would be just as generous if the acts were truly anonymous, and I would receive no credit. In seeking out those opportunities, an even more interesting challenge arose - providing random strangers with the opportunity to gift acts of kindness. The first experience was as a restaurant in Times Square with a pre-fixe lunch that included dessert.  I did not want any dessert, so I asked the waiter to find another customer and tell the customer that he was offering a free dessert as a random act of kindness.  I specifically made sure he did not mention me ... Read Full Story >>

Sunglasses in the Custodian Closet

I'm new to the Smile Cards, but here's my first experience with the cards. I work in a school and after all the kids are gone for the day a sweet young lady  Claire comes in to clean the school classrooms and offices. I'm there late once a week and I often chat for a few minutes with her.  She always makes me feel so good because she's not full of herself and instead she wants to hear about me or will talk about her children.  Our conversations are always great.  Last week she wasn't her happy self and told me how her husband had lost his job of 15 years and that she didn't know what they would do without his income. I wanted to cheer her up some how, but couldn't think of anything at that time. Later that week I was in a department store I noticed all the pretty summer clothing ... Read Full Story >>

Befriending a Bully With Kindness

During the first week of of my second semester sophmore year, the first thing I happen to hear is that there's a new kid at school.  From what was being spread around, this student was being portrayed as a big mean bully, someone that was expelled for getting in a fight at a school nearby. In my mind, though, I could only think how awful and how uncomfortable I would feel as a new student with a reputation already set out for me. So the next thing I did was I searched for the new student.  I ran all over campus to find and locate him, until I found him, head sulked down and with a weary expression upon his face.  Without hesitating, I approached him, introduced myself and asked him if he was new to the campus and if he needed any help getting around.  With a relief, he ... Read Full Story >>

The Girl In The Corner

I know a girl who is not like the other children in as much as she has this unusual physical condition. 

I met her at school where her mom is my math teacher. This day I saw her sitting in a corner of the library by herself, looking very alone. I don't know what came over me but I went to her. At first she wouldn't really talk to me even though I was trying to be a friend. Every time I touched her hair, her hands, or any of her things she moved my hand away. 

I felt I had done all I could, but before I left the library I told her that she shouldn't be ashamed of her appearance like because it was our personalities that were really important. I said that each one of us have the right to live happily and freely without being judged by how we look.

I was about to stand and leave when she suddenly stopped me and hugged me! 

It melted my heart seeing her smiling and I am so glad I made the effort.

Kindness In Grief

A long time ago, I was a waitress in a pancake house that stayed open til midnight. One evening around 11:30, a couple came in. There was no one else in the restaurant, so I started chatting as I poured the coffee. It turns out that the womans mother was in the hospital and it was only a matter of time before she passed. We talked how hard it was to watch a parent die and how we both hoped that she wouldn't be in pain for too much longer. She asked if the restaurant would be open the following evening and I assured her that it would and I would be waiting for them with a hot pot of coffee. For 5 more evenings, they retured. I wouldn't let the cook turn off the grill until they showed up. He wasn't happy about it, but after I told him the ... Read Full Story >>

Being a Blessing to Someone Else Everyday

Today, it was over 100 degrees out.  Horrible humidity too.  While driving to get my tire fixed on my van I noticed some homeless people wandering around in this heat.  My heart sank. As soon as I was done at the garage I went to the store and picked up some gatorade, ice and bags of trail mix.  I headed home to pick up my 3 kids (1, 2 and 16 years old), loaded the van with the cooler and went off to pass them out.  We found 3 homeless guys walking in the heat with the weight of their backpacks and gave them ice cold gatorade and bags of trail mix.  The best part was seeing the look on my 16 year old's face as he handed them the drinks and hearing my 2 year old say 'God bless you!' from the back seat.   Awesome.  This is how my kids and I ... Read Full Story >>

A Small Act at the Grocery Store Starts a New Ripple

There are two men who are almost always outside my grocery store, in various states of dishevelment. One is sometimes (but not always) in a wheelchair. He holds a sign that says he is a vet and "anything will help." The other man is younger, nearly toothless, and if he were not in such a public place, would maybe frighten me a little. I have walked past them countless times, on my way to buy my family's weekly groceries.  I don't usually like to give money to panhandlers. But I see these guys so often, that I decided to make eye contact, say a deliberate "Hi" and smile at them, instead of ducking my head away and ignoring them.  In both cases, I got a startled "hello there" back. Last week, while waiting in the deli area, I noticed the pre-made, plastic-wrapped sub-style sandwiches. I grabbed two of them, two extra apples, and two ... Read Full Story >>

A One-Week Mission To Bring Cheer

There's a woman I work with who is very shy.  She doesn't usually share much about herself so I don't know her very well.  At the beginning of the week, a group of my co-workers and I were gathered around the water fountain.  This woman was there too.  Usually she is fairly quiet, but today she was unloading all her woes.....I listened (without interrupting) while she shared  her  many concerns and life challenges with the group. Some of the group rolled their eyes or tried to change the subject I suspected because they did not want their precious break time spent on someone else's problems. I could tell she was really stressed and disheartened. Even, her appearance spoke volumes - her posture was poor with slumped shoulders, she has deep furrow lines on her forehead, her eyes had no sparkle and she had dark circles. She seemed to be surrounded by ... Read Full Story >>

A Forgotten Young Man

Some years back when I was growing up, we had a young couple who were our neighbours.  They had five children and were a fairly established couple, with a car and other amenities.  Since we were neighbours, their children were like my brothers and sisters.  I must say they lived a good life; their parents took them to better schools than us. In 1988, though, their father passed away.  Two years later, their mother died too.  All of a sudden, the children became orphans.  Some greedy relatives husttled the car and other valuables and the children became destitutes.  They moved out of the neighbourhood and went to stay with their grandmother in the village. Fifteen years later (early this year), I ran into one of the boys. I couldn't believe what I was seeing! Somehow the boy remembered me and then we remembered the "good old days" as neighbors.  By the time I ... Read Full Story >>

Secret Agents Spreading Smiles!

Today my champion-of-kindness daughter and I set out on one of our kindness missions.  A while back we did some random drops of envelopes filled with a dollar, Smile cards, and a note asking them to pay it forward. Today we tried a similar experiment and it was my little 6 year old’s idea.   We put a different spin on it this time. She wanted to watch people open them, as last time we loved the few we did see. So this time when we left an envelope, we watched from somewhere nearby. We made sure to only leave them when we couldn’t be caught.   The first one someone grabbed and walked off. We only followed them for a bit and then thought it best to move on to our next “victim”. The second one we sat across from and watched. It was a family who found it. The skeptical husband thought for ... Read Full Story >>

Swift Reaction At a Circus

Once when I was a teenager,  my father and I were standing in line to buy tickets for the circus.  Finally, there was only one family between us and the ticket counter.  This family made a big impression on me.  There were eight children, all probably under the age of 12.  You could tell they didn't have a lot of money.  Their clothes were not expensive, but they were clean.  The children were well-behaved, all of them standing in line, two-by-two behind their parents, holding hands.  They were excitedly jabbering about the clowns, elephants and other acts they would see that night.  One could sense they had never been to the circus before.  It promised to be a highlight of their young lives. The father and mother were at the head of the pack standing proud as could be.  The mother was holding her husband's hand, looking up at him as ... Read Full Story >>

My Nurse's Special Birthday Gift

Last month it was my nurse's birthday. She has been caring for me since August 2006. Through the months, we have built an amazing bond. She has been there for me, and has helped me over so many hurdles its unbelievable. She's my rock in every way. I wanted to do something special for her birthday, to show her how much she means to me. Being confined to my bed, I can't go out shopping for a gift. So I was left to use my imagination and the materials in my room. But I was determined to make an unforgettable gift. I found an old shoe box, and got a bunch of my old girlie magazines, and spent 4 days cutting and pasting carefully selected items onto the box, creating an intricate collage. Each piece reflected in some way or another, our friendship. To finish it off, I put a photo of us ... Read Full Story >>