Stories by cheeka (16 matches)

Mentoring Matters

About five years ago, I was part of a pilot group for my employer tasked with figuring out how to hire and mentor people with disabilities and make them successful inside the organisation. My boss decided to be the executive sponsor for the pilot and he was very kind. Until then we had only hired people with visually challenged disability. I led the interview process and hiring of a candidate with an autism disability. The candidate had the qualifications but our interview panel felt that the disability would prevent him from learning the skills and being successful in the role. I convinced my peers to give him a role, and try out - after all, it was a pilot program meant for our organisation to learn too. I gave the candidate a lot of encouragement and I became one of his mentors. Our HR department was not too supportive to take some ... Read Full Story >>

An Uber Driver's Compassion

A few years back I suffered from a strange vertigo health issue which showed up out the blue and caused me to feel dizzy. Around that time, I had to travel to North Carolina for a business trip that I could not miss. My wife said that she wanted to accompany me on the trip, along with my daughter. They were both concerned about me. On our hour-long Uber ride to the airport, vertigo struck. As I sat in the front of the car, I couldn't help myself, vertigo came on in a rush and I threw up all over his seat. I was so embarrassed.  Quietly, I asked the Uber driver to pull over so that I could deal with the mess I created. After some clean-up and freshwater, my wife asked me if we should cancel the trip and head back home. I told her that I felt OK and ... Read Full Story >>

Planting A Tree In Honor Of Our Parents

Today, my brother shared with us a picture that he planted a tree in honor of our mother through this website as our mother's anniversary is coming up shortly. I went and checked the site and was  moved by the statement "Planting trees on someone’s behalf is a great way to honor them and since trees provide so many natural benefits, it is a gift that keeps on giving. Trees clean our air, absorbing harmful carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. Healthy forests sustain critical habitat needed for wildlife and enhance our own outdoor pursuits" I ordered a tree to be planted in honor of our father as well who worked in Forest department.  It felt good to honor our parents by planting trees and supporting reforestation efforts.                                    ... Read Full Story >>

The Seeds of Education Keep on Giving

This morning I met our gardener and gave him his monthly salary. After receiving it, he paused and asked me if I could help pay the school fees for his child and deduct it from his future monthly salaries. I agreed that we would do this and he was very happy.

 Afterwards, I discussed it with my wife. She immediately told me we should fund it without deducting it from his salary. Every year we fund the school fees for a child she explained. This year let it be for our gardener's son. We both agreed that is the right thing to do. I feel happy we can be of help to support a child's education.

Airport Employee Kindness

My daughter flew back to Los Angeles from a spring break. Her flight landed late evening from east coast. She decided to take a bus out of LAX so that shecould find an Uber faster and cheaper just outside the airport.

Turned out the bus was full of LAX employees and she was chatting with a few of them. They advised her that it is unsafe to be waiting in a street outside the LAX airport to catch Uber during late evening. 

One of the kind women in the bus literally gave a ride to my daughter all the way to her apartment, dropped her safely and did not accept a penny in return. My daughter was so thankful. 

It is the pinnacle of kindness as narrated by our daughter to us last week. 

An Abundance of Banana to Share

We are lucky to have a fruitful banana tree in our home. It has been giving us a signal for some time to harvest the fruit.  We decided not to wait any longer and harvested the fruit and the stem which were tasty. 

It was with great pleasure that we were able to distribute the fruit to about ten families in our community, to our house helpers and to my wider circle of friends. It was a privilege to watch our banana tree grow step by step and eventually give forth a generous harvest of bananas. The tree was kind and it is a wonderful feeling to pass its generosity to those around us.

           

Positive Words Of Encouragement To A Stranger And Healing From Diabetes

A couple of days ago, I was walking in a park when a gentleman sitting on a bench called me "sir, can you help me with this report?". I stopped and asked "what report please?". He showed me a print out and asked me if I can read and explain. I looked at it and it was his health diagnosis report. I told him I am not a doctor but i can explain the contents of the report. I told him "sir, the report is called Hba1c, it is about your average glucose levels in your body over a period of the past 2-3 months; your reading shows 7.6; anything above 6.5 is considered you are diabetic". He said "sir, my doctor has given me medicine and I have been taking it for past month and half. But this report is from yesterday and it is still showing i am ... Read Full Story >>

A Happy Day!

Today is a day that gave me so much happiness to attend the wedding of Mr. K, an ex-colleague of mine who is visually impaired. About 7 years ago, I was part of a small team that helped hire differently-abled people into our organization. Mr. K is an accessibility engineer, very successful in his job, very humble and grateful. Mr. K has been mentoring many visually challenged people across the world and has helped so many to get started in their careers. This morning, as I greeted Mr. K after the formal exchange of vows with his spouse Mrs. D, his joy had no bounds and so was mine. He introduced Mrs. D to me and it turns out that Mrs. D is also visually impaired and she is a successful school teacher. I wished them very well. When I turned around, I met a person who introduced himself as Mrs. D's ... Read Full Story >>

Sprinkles Everywhere

My nephew's daughter turned one yesterday. My wife who is a Robinhood Army (https://robinhoodarmy.com/) volunteer, helped distribute cup cakes along with a few other volunteers to about 80 less fortunate kids with the message "Sprinkle Kindness Everywhere".

The cakes were made by Praneet, a young boy who has now become one of top 50 bakers in India. Today we are happy to sprinkle kindness to a few kids and make them smile.

May 28th happens to be World Hunger Day.

 

Bananas

Our banana tree was kind enough to give us a huge bunch of bananas, banana flowers and banana stem. We kept it for a few days for the bananas to ripen. Today I cut the banana bunch into about 8-10 dozen sets, placed it in a bag, walked towards our community staff and delivered it to them.They were happy and so was I.
 

Support The School Fees For Our Gardener's Kid

Our community gardener is a soft, gentle person. He has two school going kids who are going to a private school. He is unable to fund the school fees for one kid. My wife jumped in, talked to him and his wife to get more details. She told them that she will be glad to put in a word with the principal of a local government school where there are no fees and the school has smart technology facilities.
My gardener and his wife were unaware of such a school but the admission could be only available for the next year. My wife and I spoke and we decided to pitch in funding for the kid along with one of our neighbors for this year. Small help but the gardener is not one of the asking type so we had to really follow-up with him to understand what he is going through.

Support The School Fees Of Low Income Families

My wife is an amazing supporter of education for girls and people in low income families. She wanted to sponsor the primary school fees for a girl who happens to be the daughter of household staff. She got my younger daughter to sponsor a big portion of the school fees and my younger daughter gladly agreed. I have no role in this kindness except having the pleasure of hearing it and sharing here. My wife also influenced a neighbor to contribute and they gladly agreed. Next month we plan to support the school fees of a child of our community gardener.

The Generous Banana And Guava Trees

Our banana tree in the garden is very generous and kind. She has harvested a whole bunch of bananas, banana flower and banana stem. My wife and I are distributing the harvest to our neighbors, friends, gardener and maid. It's just an awesome feeling.
Our Guava tree is equally generous in its harvest of sweet guavas. The squirrels get a good treat and so do we!

Canteen’s Leftover Food For Less Advantaged

My wife learnt that Google's office in our neighborhood is left with a lot of food in their canteen. Most times that leftovers food goes waste. My wife went to their office, bought some vessels and plates from a shop, collected the food and went to a nearby cluster where poor people live. They happily ate. My wife is now doing this process twice a week and she is also working with Robinhood to see if they can arrange volunteers so the food is collected and served to the less advantaged.

Books Donation

It was time to clean up our book shelves and my wife is very regular in giving items away. Today, we donated about 30 books of old classics and autobiographies to a book store who gladly accepted it. I am sure it will delight some one else looking to get a copy of these books.

Water Conservation

There has been a water crisis in our city due to climate change, failure of monsoons, unplanned growth in the city, lack of water conservation awareness, rain water harvesting. I helped form a water conservation committee in our community, together drafted a set of water conservation guidelines and shared it across all the residents in our community. To raise the awareness that water should be treated as a currency, I helped install water meters for all the houses in our community and shared the readings for the past couple of months.

Kindness Meet

Birthday Gift To Myself

Since I Missed My ...

The Jacket Bought More Than 50 Years Ago

Job Success From An Act Of Kindness

A Pocketful Of Peanuts And A Heart Full Of Smiles

Helping Others Is The Best Medicine

Open Hearts On A Crammed Bus

Random Acts of Kindness On The Menu

Making a New Friend

Rani's Gift.

Let it Snow, Let is Snow!

Wings of Joy Shared

A Walk In The Park

It's The Little Things...

My Connection and Love to Portland, Oregon