Restoring Faith in Humanity Anecdotes
“Amid the chaos, I went to McDonald’s and could hear the tired strain in the drive-thru employee’s voice. I paid with a $20 bill and had $6 in change. I asked the woman to keep the change and told her how grateful I was to her for being there when everyone was home. Her eyes were teary, and she thanked me back, taking three of the six dollars and putting it in the Children’s Hospital donation box. We smiled at each other about how she took my gesture and immediately doubled it.”
— Grace Marie
“Once things started to get a bit serious, one employee, Justin Wilson, sent a text letting us know he’d be happy to run errands, shop, etc. if we were going to be quarantined due to our ages and health. This was an awesome gesture. It came totally unsolicited, and at the same time, we were busy figuring out how we might be able to take long-term care of him and his fellow teammates if things really got locked all the way down.”
— Anonymous
“Just letting someone know you care is a pretty good way to cheer people up. We’ve told our people to just be kind. This is new to all of us, and we need to be equally concerned for what might be hurting a friend, co-worker, or customer.”
— Bernie Fechtel
“Our friend Cindy McDaniel is a bartender, and to make a little money she delivered groceries for friends who couldn’t go out. Twice we found deliveries at our door with random things she knew we liked or something to let us know she was thinking about us.”
— Andrea Young
“My wife and I were returning from a trip and I had previously arranged to have our mail and newspaper delivery stopped and restarted the day we returned. Normally the newspaper delivery person leaves the held papers in an open plastic pouch on the porch.
It had been raining hard during the day of our return, although when the newspapers were delivered, it must not have been, because they were actually left on the sidewalk in the middle of the yard instead of porch. But then came the heavy rain, and about that same time, our wonderful mailman was delivering our first-day-back mail.
He unselfishly got out of his dry vehicle, walked the distance to pick up the heavy pack of newspapers, and brought them to our front porch, laying them by the door. Our doorbell video camera shows him with the pouch of papers at our door. We were truly humbled. We wrote him a thank you note with a printed copy of the picture from the video and a small gift that same week when he delivered our mail. He said he always tried to watch out for people on his route, especially when he knows they’re traveling. I think this was an outstanding act of kindness that would have gone unknown if not for the doorbell camera.”
— Milton Barr
“Every Sunday, Larinda McRaven offers a free live-streamed sound bath meditation on her Facebook page. It’s a gift from her heart to Jefferson City and to her friends across the country and around the world, all of whom are affected by the pandemic.”
— Barbara Tellerman