Stories of Kindness from Around the World

This is a small act of kindness but significant, as it’s important for me to remember that these acts don’t have to be grandiose to make a difference.

My daughter and I took on the task of redeeming the soda cans and bottles for deposit money, something we avoid and I usually end up doing alone. We had 6 garbage bags full so we knew we’d be spending a bit of time at the redemption center. When we got there, a man and his kids were also spending the morning recycling and were using 2 of the 4 machines to recycle their plastic and cans. Luckily, we were able to use the 2 remaining machines to do our work.

Of course, there were others that came, but when they saw the two families with multiple garbage bags full of recyclables, they quickly left. However, one woman came in with just 5 cans and looked as if she needed a break. So I stopped what I was doing and let her in to recycle her cans. Of course, she was grateful, and it felt good to have let her go ahead of me. But that’s not the whole story.

My daughter and I continued to work through the bags, but the plastic recycling machine jammed because it was full. My daughter was left with nothing to do. The other family was still using the only other plastic recycling machine, but seemed they were almost done. I was eager to be done with this as I had reached my time limit for recycling.

Just at the time the other family put their last plastic bottle in, another man came with his collection of recyclables. ARGH! I thought, I was hoping my daughter would get in there, but it looked like this was not possible. I just told my daughter we would have to wait until he was done, or the store came to fix the other plastic recycling machine. But the man came through with another act of kindness. He saw my daughter was waiting and let us go ahead of him. I was really surprised, because we had way more than 5 bottles, but he didn’t seem to mind.

It was great to give and then to get an act of kindness in return. It was small, I didn’t expect it, but it sure brightened my day.