All It Takes Is One
One song can spark a moment,
One flower can wake the dream.
One tree can start a forest,
One bird can herald spring.
One smile begins a friendship,
One handclasp lifts a soul.
One star can guide a ship at sea,
One word can frame the goal
One vote can change a nation,
One sunbeam lights a room
One candle wipes out darkness,
One laugh will conquer gloom.
One step must start each journey.
One word must start each prayer.
One hope will raise our spirits,
One touch can show you care.
One voice can speak with wisdom,
One heart can know what’s true,
One life can make a difference,
You see, it’s up to you!
- Posted by Shriraj
- Sep 17, 2007
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More Than Just a Favour
I had an errand to do in Saltcoats today. I arrived early so I decided to go for a walk by the harbourside. It was pouring down with rain but I had my new waterproof jacket on so I didn't really mind. As I was walking along, I met someone who wasn't so lucky. He had swept back salt 'n' pepper hair, a bushy gray beard, sky blue eyes - and he was soaked through and through. "Could you do me a favour?" He held his hand out. "Probably not," I replied. Things had been tight financially and for the past fortnight I'd been telling my kids we can't do this and we can't afford that. "I've been trying to chase up the price of a beer," he continued. Well, I admired his honesty. If I'd been living on the street like he obviously had, a beer might have been important to me too. I ... Read Full Story >>
- Posted by wayfarer
- Sep 20, 2009
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A Stranger Becomes A Friend
Today was my first day using Smile cards!
- Posted by rishigangoly
- Feb 15, 2013
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A Secret Handshake Puts It Right
Yesterday was my step-mom’s birthday. I haven’t been home in a long time so I wanted to stop by the house to see her on this special day. I have been struggling financially so I was dreading the long trip. Gas is so expensive nowadays! Anyway, I filled my tank with gas and set off. I stopped at the shopping mall and found a present. It was the perfect gift and I knew she would love it. But when I got to the cashier my card was declined! I did not have enough money in my account to pay for the gift! So I pondered the issue for a few minutes. I could put it back and get something cheaper, but I knew there was nothing else in the store she would have liked as much. So, I got on my smart-phone and transferred some money from my savings account so I was ... Read Full Story >>
- Posted by hasifa
- Feb 7, 2012
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Growing Seeds in Silence
Sometimes you read a story that just takes root in your heart. Many stories on the helpothers.org website have been like that for me: "I Wish You Enough" by BrightEyes and "An Unforgettable Fishing Experience" by Mike Delyria to name just two. Well this story I'm about to share with you has been growing in the heart of many people on Cape Ann, where I live. It is the story of Jude, a young deaf man with green thumbs and a big heart who recently opened a plant store in our community called The Silent Seed. I first heard about him from my friend Nana who had noticed the new store during one of her walks and was so inspired by the owner that she felt called to draw the whole neighborhood's attention to his work. A few days later, my friend Loretta who lives in a totally different part of ... Read Full Story >>
- Posted by gipsysoul
- Oct 8, 2008
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A Rainy Afternoon Brightened With Little Acts of Kindness
If you are on the lookout, you can almost always find an opportunity for kindness. I filled my afternoon with small gestures today, they didn't take much time or effort, but I hope they made a small difference to the people who received them. I was out and about because I had to do a few errands this afternoon. My first stop was the supermarket. I wanted to buy some croissants with chocolate on them for my daughter Rita. I also decided to get a few plain ones for my husband, my mum and me. Armed with the croissants, I went on to my second stop - a local charity bookshop. I wanted to see if they had any books on Unicorns, since Rita loves them (and, I have to admit, so do I). While I was there, I struck up a conversation with the lady at the counter during which she commented on the smell ... Read Full Story >>
- Posted by Bluebell
- Jun 26, 2010
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A Hotel Manager Creates Some Magic
About nine years ago I worked at a large downtown hotel. Since we were connected to a mall and a public parking garage, anyone could just pretty much walk into the hotel area. We started having a big problem with homeless youth living in our stairwells at night. The stairwells went largely unused because of their hidden nature and the fact that once inside, you could only go down and exit to the street, all the doors locked behind you and you could not travel between levels and exit back into the hotel. As night manager, I ended up being the one to evict these youth, night after night after night. One night there were seven homeless young people and a puppy, in a total of three locations. I hated to do it on rainy nights, but it was my job, and some guests felt threatened when encountering tattooed and pierced youth ... Read Full Story >>
- Posted by luna1969
- Sep 16, 2010
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Can I Have Kindness For My Birthday?
This year, instead of birthday presents, dinners, etc, my husband and I decided to pool our resources and request acts of kindness, compassion and generosity be done on our behalf.
My favorite so far involves my girlfriend's 12 year old daughter who got so inspired that she's currently brainstorming things she can do to be kind and generous.
- Posted by magicmuffin
- Apr 6, 2013
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My Best Birthday Ever
After being inspired by a video of a young Pakistani man celebrating his 22nd birthday with 22 random acts of kindness, I mentioned to my girlfriend Tamara that I'd like to do the same for my upcoming 55th birthday in December. Well, she grabbed onto the idea and made it happen. We wore goofy reindeer antlers to make people smile, placed cheery stickers on the shirts of children, cleaned up a park, passed out delicious Mexican hot chocolate to those in the park--many of whom appeared homeless, offered bottled water and compassionate listening in the shopping mall, played rock/scissors/papers with a bored 10 year old boy who was waiting for his sisters to finish shopping, and more. The highlight for me occurred at the end of the day when we were passing out carnation flowers in a retirement home after their dinner. At first I found myself questioning my motives and how it would be received. It turned ... Read Full Story >>
- Posted by WaterDog
- Mar 8, 2015
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A Touching Gift From My Nurse
I was in hospital for 5 weeks and was diagnosed with Intracrainial Hypertension. I had to have surgery to have a shunt put in to drain excess fluid from my brain. Following the operations I had a problem with balance and walking was a huge problem. I had to have nurses help me with everything. It was a real difficult and emotional time because it was close to Christmas and I really missed my 3 children. While I was in the hospital, there was one nurse in particular who looked after me, who had a huge impact on my recovery. One day she came with a gift she had bought for me. I was deeply touched. It was a poster with a picture of an empty beach and a verse printed on it. On the back she wrote me a lovely note and signed it. Now I'm not very religious and I'd not seen this before but I was overcome with emotion when I read it. I ... Read Full Story >>
- Posted by whatthe
- Feb 13, 2009
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Top 10 Stories of 2012 - Story #5 - 3 Years Later, A Smile Card Seed Sprouts
"Three years! I've had this card in my wallet for three years!" He sounded both elated and relieved. Backtrack a few moments. *The setup* I'm flagged down while walking by a table in a restaurant where I serve. I hadn't been serving this table, but they wanted something with me anyway, so I went over. A young couple sat at the table, looking at me with intention. "Are you serving those two women in the other room?" they said, gesturing to one of my tables. I confirmed, yes. "Well, we'd like to pay for their bill, anonymously," they offered tentatively. "Can you do that for us?" Can I?! It'd be an honor. I told them so, and we worked out the details. The table to be tagged hadn't gotten to dessert yet so they even added on a slice of cake, and I offered to partner in the tag and cover anything else they ordered. The ... Read Full Story >>
- Posted by greggie
- Dec 27, 2012
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Touched by kindness
My daughter and myself were driving from Los Angeles to Dallas. We were running low on gas somewhere in New Mexico and figured we'd see a gas station soon enough to fill up. But that didn't happen and we realized we were not going to make it to the next town. So my daughter made up a sign that read "Low on gas. Can u help?" and held it outside her window in the hopes that a driver in the next lane would notice it and stop. There weren't too many vehicles passing us either at the time. It was a desolate stretch of road and about 3.30 pm on a weekday. A suburban was driving along happily in the neighboring lane ahead of us. We caught up with it in the hopes the driver would notice the sign. An elderly gentleman was driving it and after a brief expression of confusion on ... Read Full Story >>
- Posted by preethivfm
- Apr 9, 2015
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The Art of Waving
It began a year ago, around Christmas. While driving around the corner of our townhouse complex, I always notice an old man sitting by his front yard. He is usually smoking or drinking and looks rather grumpy. One day, while I was driving past him with my daughter, I decided to wave at him with a lot of excitement. Initially, when he noticed me waving at him, he looked a bit shocked. Then, I saw his hand go up and he waved back. "Why did you wave at him?" my daughter asked. I told her that it's just an act of kindness that doesn't cost anything, and it gives both him and me a sense of joy. She responded by saying that she was a bit embarrassed to wave to a stranger, but next time she would try it as well. Lucky for us, we live close to the old man, so we saw him ... Read Full Story >>
- Posted by yweling
- Feb 18, 2013
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An Extra Special Restaurant Surprise
I recently had the chance to have a meal with some close friends who don't live in my city. The choice of restaurant was a pretty fancy one known for triple digit bills. We had a wonderful time together at the restaurant and approaching the end of the meal, I excused myself. I silently headed towards the waiter and asked him to charge the meal to my credit card, but to also not tell anyone that I did it. I signed for the meal and and quickly went back to my seat, no one the wiser for my trip. When it came time for the check, the waiter came by and told me and my fellow diners that the meal had already been paid for by an unknown person! They couldn't believe it and demanded to know who did it, but the waiter assured them he didn't know :) The response on ... Read Full Story >>
- Posted by beastly
- Sep 2, 2010
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Kindness links growing
I used kindness links in my 3rd and 4th grade classrooms. Each time I saw a student being kind, they would write their kind act on the link and add it to the chain (the chain hung up in the classroom).
It was awesome to see how long our chain was by the end of the school year!
- Posted by mbpeterson3
- Apr 9, 2016
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Lesson From A Janitor
It was five in the morning. The room smelt weird. I saw him, next to me, deep in slumber. I went up to the bathroom and got my answer to the stench. He had had a few extra drinks last night, must have puked all over the wash basin. The basin was clogged and the stench inside was unbearable. A little angry I came back in the room with half a mind to wake him up and ask him to clean up. I could hear his soft snores and knew that he needs that sleep to be normal the next morning. This happened when we were vacationing in Dubai during Diwali holidays. I called up the reception and in an embarrassed tone explained my problem. It was a five star property and the receptionist promised to send someone over within a minute. Before hanging up, I requested him to send ... Read Full Story >>
- Posted by Raksha
- Nov 27, 2007
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Christmas With My Son
I have a five year old son and two 18 month old twins and especially at Christmas time I wanted them to truely understand what the act of giving was all about. So I made a list of people that were less likely to recieve gifts or love and let my five year old chose who we would give gifts to.
He chose homeless people. We purchased some large inexpensive gift bags and filled them with canned goods, used warm socks, new toothbrushes, bars of soap, candy bars, and many other surprises, but to my surprise my son came in with his piggy bank and said they could have his money. We filled several plastic bags with coins and I slipped in a few dollar bills, and we put all the bags in the trunk of the car.
It was several days before we saw a homeless person pushing a cart down the main blvd. and fortunately my son was with me and we pulled over and gave the bag to a man who started to cry when we wished him Merry Christmas. I have never forgotten the look of gratitude on his face and neither has my son.
We have now done this for three years on my sons request.
- Posted by Anon
- May 5, 2006
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One Garbage Bag at a Time
I live in an apartment building where there are several elderly people and other tenants that are on a low or fixed income. There is a older gentleman neighbor of mine that is always willing to help out and go out of his way to help anyone in need. A few weeks ago, I was taking a large amount of trash out to the dumpster. This neighbor saw me and stopped to help me as he was taking out his own trash. When we got to the dumpster, he dumped his trash out of the bag. However, he kept his trash bag. "Why don't you throw the trash bag away?" I asked him. He replied that he has been using the same trash bag for a couple of months because he really didn't have money to spare to buy new ones. This immediately made me tear up. I thought about how we can ... Read Full Story >>
- Posted by emackaroni83
- Feb 20, 2013
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My First Experience With Smile Cards
Well.....I just couldnt WAIT to try out my smile cards. Last week I set out on my nightly outing -- to a meeting, and then to spend some time with my best friend. I told him I wanted to use my smile cards. First stop, the Dollar Store. I bought 2 nice candle jars with thoughtful things written on them. Next up, 7 Eleven. We parked and looked for someone to give a candle and card to. A woman had just gotten gas and was walking into the store. I hurriedly got out and ran over to her car, put the candle and card on top where she couldn't miss it, and ran back to my truck and waited. When she came out, she saw it, looked around, and acted like she was afraid to touch it! Another man getting ... Read Full Story >>
- Posted by Hope4lisa
- Mar 25, 2007
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Rock N Roll Never Dies
After 11 years of being "lucky to live Hawaii" my wife and I are moving to Florida to take care of my Mother. It's a real treat for my wife, who is a local girl who has never been to the mainland.
To minimize expenses we decided to mail the essentials from Hawaii to Florida -- the cheapest solution we could come up with. This also meant parting with things that we have held onto. Things like my cassette tape collection, along with my vinyl record collection. I'm guessing that I probably had about 300+ cassette tapes, mostly 60-70's rock and around 100 or so vinyl LP's, many bootlegs and a lot of great cover art.
I called our local radio station and told my friend DC, the morning jock, that I'd like to donate them to a listener who would appreciate them and give them a good home. He put it on the air, said that the first caller would get the cassettes and within minutes, a listener named "Spike" was over joyed to get them!
The following day DC gave away my vinyl collection and I'm glad they will have a home where they will be listened to.
- Posted by hiloecho
- May 2, 2007
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