kindness

Be Kind and You Will Receive Kindness

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It’s the last Friday of the month, which means I’m back with another We Are The World Blogfest post! This month I stumbled across a post that was dated from 2018, but it still absolutely warmed my heart.

The woman in the post talks about how she runs what she refers to as an “anarchist co-op coffee shop” (more on that later), and that several of the homeless kids in the area knew that she would slip them free food and things to them when they came by.

Most would think the story ends there, but this gets even more heartwarming.

The kids go out of their way to help her out. They organized to make sure that at least one of them stayed with her all night when she had a late night shift by herself. And then another time, they —

Well, you’ll just have to read for yourself…

Isn’t that just so great? Now it gets even better.

A friend of mine is the one who brought my attention to this post. He explained that he knew the woman personally and that she was the sweetest woman he knew. The coffee shop was joint owned, so there was no top-down hierarchy for the store. Each of the owners put in an equal amount of work into the shop, and each split the profits.

So that’s why the woman in the post never got in trouble. She was one of the owners so she helped make the rules.

Isn’t that fantastic? I wish more places could do this sort of thing to help out homeless kids in their neighborhoods. I hope you enjoyed this post! Be sure to check out the other heartwarming stories on today’s blog hop.

The Same Experience as Everyone Else

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What a difference it can make just to know that someone cares.

I read this story earlier this month on Facebook from a post made from the Kindness Factory’s page, a non-profit organization.

A man explains that he goes in to pick up his Frappuccino from his local coffee shop, but since he’s deaf, he usually has it written on his phone and just shows it to the barista so they know what he wants. He goes there just about every day, so most of the employees know his order by heart anyway.

Then one day, he showed his order like normal, and the woman named Krystal Payne handed him a note that read:

“I’ve been learning ASL just so you can have the same experience as every one else.”

Then she started using sign language with him, explaining that she had spent hours practicing it on Youtube just to be able to have a conversation with him. They only talked for about two minutes, but he said that “he had never felt “so equal in all of [his] life.”

Now if that doesn’t restore your faith in humanity, I don’t know what will.

I just love Krystal not only having the idea to do this for him, but also her determination to spend hours making sure she could actually talk with him. She absolutely didn’t have to do it, but the fact that she went out of her way to make him feel like any other customer just makes your heart melt.

You can read the full account on Facebook here. It honestly needs way more attention.

If you enjoyed this story and would like to read more positive tales that have been collated over the internet, check out the We Are the World Blogfest on Facebook. That way you can read all of the incredible acts of kindness that is just the explosion of positivity I need at the end of the month.

Unexpected Kindness

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Can y’all believe that October is just around the corner? It really is my favorite time of the year, when the weather isn’t too hot down where I live. Haunted houses, spooky hay rides, hedge mazes, apple cider, candy corn, and Halloween parties! Before we dive into a month full of spooky fun, it’s time to serve up a nice slice of optimism for your Friday. I’m very happy to be part of the “We Are The World Blogfest” once again – cause the world needs to be a little bit more bright and cheery.

Imagine you’re on your morning commute, stuck in slow traffic and going around back roads on the more impoverished side of the city. The traffic light ahead seems to be running on slow motion and you’re pretty sure the driver in front of you dropped something on the floor beside her cause she keeps bending over to reach it. It’s a Wednesday and you’re tired but you’re only ten minutes away from work. You’ve got some nice tunes blaring off your phone, so that helps.

Then you turn to notice a women sitting on the side of the road. She’s camped out on top of a large drainage grate, wearing a spaghetti strap shirt and leggings. She’s homeless, you can tell from the mounds of sheets and blankets around her. You feel bad for a moment because you realize it’s like you’re watching someone in their bedroom and it feels wrong. The woman is smiling though and smoothing out the sheets she’s sitting cross-legged on, as though expecting company. That’s when you notice the police car behind her.

You inch the car forward a bit while the traffic light goes from green to red again, still glancing over to find out what’s going on. A female office gets out of the cop car, and your heart sinks for the homeless lady. You hope she isn’t about to be arrested or something. But then the officer pulls out a bag of take-out from her passenger seat and brings it over to give to the homeless lady. They’re all smiles and the officer hangs around to chat with her for a moment while she digs into the fresh, hot breakfast.

That was my commute one humid morning, and yes, I did tear up at the sight. It was one of those brief moments of kindness that just breaks your heart and stitches it together at the same time. It makes you have faith in humanity again. If an officer can take the time out of her busy morning to help a person in need, then surely we can too.

I figured this was also a good time to announce that in October, I’ll be participating in the Authors For Families auction!

“We’re a group of primarily debut novelists eager to do what we can to reunite immigrant children with their parents, and to combat inhumane family separation policies.”

I’ll be giving away a signed copy of The She-Wolf of Kanta to whoever wins the bid, and I may be tossing in some additional swag along with it.

Please share and invite anyone who you think would like to not only get a copy of my work, but would also like to donate to a very good cause!