Week 31 • Random Act of Kindness

I Heart Faces is featuring a wonderful charity called Inspiration Through Art (Littlest Heroes Project) this week. This charity centers around Professional Photographers taking photos for families with children who are suffering from any type of serious illness.

Our post this week is supposed to be about how we give back thru photography.

www.littlestheroesproject.org


When I learned that I Heart Faces this week was focusing on Random Acts of Kindness, I immediately thought of one particular incident that I witnessed. This was an amazing act that was done by one of my younger brothers, this last Thanksgiving (2009) and I JUST have to share.

My brother Juan is married to an amazing woman and they have three beautiful children. They have always shown their children how to give back to the community.

My husband and I have traveled to Ohio to spend Thanksgiving with my brother and his family for the last two years since they have been there. Being so far from family has been hard for them.

It was the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and we needed a couple of items from the grocery store. So we piled into the car and headed over to Krogers. The store was buzzing with people rushing to get last minute items. We gathered what we needed and stood in the checkout line.

In front of us in line was a young woman with a baby in tow. The cashier was ringing her up and she kept looking at the register, almost watching to make sure she had enough money. The cashier finishes and as expected, the young woman appeared not to have enough money to get all that she needed (and there was nothing in her bags that was not necessary).

She looked up at the cashier and almost in a whisper said, “I’m going to have to remove some items, I don’t have enough money.” We could see the distress in the young woman’s face. All of a sudden without hesitation my brother pulled out his card and slid it through the machine and paid for her groceries. I can’t remember now how much it was, but the look on the young woman’s face was that of total gratitude and amazement. We all stood there in total awe. The young woman told my brother she couldn’t let him do that, and my brother just told her “Happy Thanksgiving”. Everyone had tears in their eyes (including the cashier).

The woman went to leave and turned around and thanked my brother yet again. Afterwards the cashier told us that the young woman “really struggles” every week to get what she needs and that she had never seen anyone do such a kind act.

We said an extra prayer that Thanksgiving Day for that young woman and her family. I have always been proud of my brother, but witnessing that Random Act of Kindness was more than I could ask for on a day of giving thanks and it made me prouder than I could say.

So, as my way of giving back and thanking him for doing such an amazing Random Act of Kindness, I offered to take some “family” photos that day after Thanksgiving, which they used for their Christmas cards. Here are some of those photos.












Now make sure you go and check out all the other amazing entries at I Heart Faces.