To a stranger.... for a loved one, go here,

As most of the times when I stay in my hometown a little longer, I earned some bucks as a construction worker. This time we renovated a 300 years old timber-framed building, formerly used as a hotel. Before we could start the renovation, the interior had to be removed and disposed. To save the time of carrying the relatively new and cheap furniture downstairs, we started by throwing 20 wardrobes out of the window of the second floor, smaller tables, beds and other equipment followed.

At dinner break we were sitting together at the open window, having a coffee and a cigarette, when we heard some noise and voices sounding from the dump of broken furniture 4 meters below us. It turned out, that the male members of an Arabic or Turkish immigrant family were searching the heap of broken furniture for intact parts.

The first spontaneous response of my coworker was to lock the doors downstairs for his toolbox not to be stolen. This day could have ended as one of the countless negative encounters of native Germans with members of the immigrant population. The Germans’ last thought would have been: “Damn Turks, searching the trash for whatever. They are going to turn into thieves next time, I am sure.”  And the Turkish father and his two sons, humiliated by the suspicious glances of the German “nazi” construction workers would have said: “Damn Germans rich enough to destroy brand new furniture, which I could have used for my family very well, but too arrogant to even come out for a chat, or offering something.”

I started to collect the furniture left in the former hotel, carried it downstairs and offered it to the family. It was even better to see how these guys opened up, when I started some small talk in broken German. They told me about what they needed and it was easy motivate my co-workers to look for some of these things, because the family received every single item so grateful an cheerful. After less than one hour I even saw the suspicious worker running around in the hotel to check even the most remote rooms for something of value for “our” family. Even the owners’ wife joined us in our efforts and in the end of the day our family had enough stuff to re-equip their living room and my guys had a great feeling of having done the right thing.

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I was on my way home from the supermarket with a packet of food that I bought for me and he was sitting on the ground and asking alms, he was so sad and everybody was passing by and I didn't know what to do. So when I came close to him I just put my pocket on the ground near him and left without saying anything. I was little confused because I had never done such things before at the same time I felt good. I don't know the reaction the homeless guy, I left. I hope at least that day he had something to eat. I know that I haven't changed his attitude to life or to people or to anything else, but it is not bad when you give someone things that he needs.

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On the 2nd of January my boyfriend and me were travelling home from Thuringia to Hamburg, which proved to be a mistake, as trains were that overcrowded that even the most peaceful soul lost patience. Everyone was arguing with each other, no one helped anybody. When we finally changed into another less crowded train, we decided to calm our souls with some chocolate and fruits. Somehow we didn’t even think about, but we just offered to all neighbouring travellers some of our sweets and wished them a happy new year. Everybody was positively surprised and some nice small talk evolved from this little gesture. Though this might be a disappearing small act of friendship, it made us and I think everyone involved definitely feels better after the tense situations before. One could even say that the train almost became our living room.

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I usually do not drink coffee but at one of these mornings it seems to be the only thing that could help against my tiredness. Most of the cafes had not opened then, so I went to one of these coffee-chain-cafes I usually would not even look at. Coincidentally the café gave away a promotional thermo cup with every coffee.... I decided to leave my cup with the homeless guys. I went to another café at the train station to have the cup filled up, put a note on it saying: “freshly brewed coffee. Enjoy!” and took it back to them. As the homeless people were still sleeping I can’t tell how the story ended. I hope that they weren’t afraid of being poisoned, if they drink it. I didn´t think of the fact that homeless people might have to be aware of people who do such things.

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I helped an old man to get his heavy bag out of the luggage rack above the seats in the plane. He wasn’t too surprised of this kindness, but as I saw he barely couldn’t carry his bag down the stairs, I helped him again and I carried his bag the whole way to the baggage claim to put it on a trolley. He smiled and he thanked me f many times. This made me happy as well.

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Another day when I went to the movies with a friend I came up with the idea to pay for the next child that comes in and wants to watch a movie, whoever it might be. That is what I told the woman on the front desk. I gave her the money before I left and felt really good about myself, although I had no idea who I paid for. I am sure that the child was perplexed, but happy and will maybe start doing little acts of kindness to other people; as well someone did it to him/her.

Overall the project was a lot of fun. It was great to see Norma's reaction or the reaction of any stranger on the streets, when I smiled at him. I realized that it is not about the great things, but much more about the little actions that already spread happiness and motivate people to do the same. Besides that, it is interesting to see how making somebody else happy can make yourself even happier.

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Yesterday I went to the city and what I did as an act of kindness was just the easiest but most effective way to be kind and make somebody´s day better. I just went around and when I saw a sad looking middle-aged woman, I just asked her whether I could hug her. She was confused and asked whether this has any special reason but I just said: „ Have a nice day“ and walked on. I think people are afraid of body contact to strangers. We fear to be touched by people we don´t know or even don´t like. Therefore it has been an overcoming for me to ask a strange person for a hug, but it was most definitely overcoming for her as well to accept it. But after all it was fun and it felt good to give a nice memory of the day to an unknown person.

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At Christmas to many people have to be alone. This is why my friend and I baked cookies and laid them in front of some neighbours where we knew they lived alone. Of course this couldn’t help them get out of their loneliness, but it sure put a smile on their face.

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Since we were given this assignment, I tried my best to be always kind with everyone around me. While walking on the streets, I smiled at the people that passed me by. Not everyone smiled back at me. However, when someone did, it felt really nice. One day, while I was on a train, I shared my spot with an old woman. She was very grateful and shared some cookies she had with me. Another day, I was buying some chocolates. There was only one package of this type of chocolate left and another woman wanted it as well. I let her have it. What I learn while doing all these acts, is that if you are kind, people respond in a positive way, and they probably will be nice with other persons as well. Moreover, there is some kind of satisfaction to be found when doing Good.

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When first thinking about the assignment I tried to figure out what would be a kind thing to do for someone I don’t even know. I wanted to have a plan which I would have put into practice at the next opportunity. But then it all happened differently and very spontaneous without a plan.

It was the first day I was back home for Christmas. I was putting out the garbage can which was to be picked up by the garbage removal the following morning. Since it was already late at night I figured all of the cans but ours would already be out to be picked up. When I got ours I saw that the one belonging to some neighbour I don’t really know wasn’t out at the streets yet either. So I got his garbage can as well and put it out because I figured he had simply forgotten about the date of removal.

I don’t really know if that counts as an “act of kindness” but I considered it to be nice since our neighbour would have been stuck with a full garbage can the whole Christmas time and New Years as well.

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Whenever I have to be at university at 08:15 for the first lecture I have to get up at 05:30 in the morning. I usually do not drink coffee but at one of these mornings it seems to be the only thing that could help against my tiredness. Most of the cafes had not opened then, so I went to one of these coffee-chain-cafes I usually would not even look at. Coincidentally the café gave away a promotional thermo cup with every coffee. As I usually do not drink coffee I didn't have any use for the thermo cup after I had finished the coffee. I thought of throwing it out but when I passed the homeless people sleeping at the train station, I decided to leave my cup with them. I went to another café at the train station to have the cup filled up, put a note on it saying: “freshly brewed coffee. Enjoy!” and took it back to them. As the homeless people were still sleeping I can’t tell how the story ended. I hope that they weren’t afraid of being poisoned, if they drink it. I didn't think of the fact that homeless people might have to be aware of people who do such things.

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Well I am in a supermarket down the road close to where I live. There was also a boy at age of 12 in front of the sweets shelf. I was in line at the check out watching him pick up coins that had fallen down while he was trying to count his money, coins. I just asked him if he had enough. He said he still needs like 30 cents. So I gave him 50 cents and asked which ones he wanted to buy. He said these ones and pointed at a bunch of red roses. He said thanks, I paid and left. 

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My act of kindness I did to a stranger was snow shovelling. It was snowing heavily, so after I had cleared our driveway I decided to do the one of my parent`s neighbour, who is very old, as well. When he came out to do it himself, he was very happy about my work.

After that, I cleared some parking lots in our street because I had seen another neighbour driving away with his car, having difficulties to get out. Thus, I shovelled away the big chunks of icy snow that fall of the cars and piled up the snow on the side so that the parking situation was better again. I am sure the neighbours were happy about it.

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The weather was very cold and there was lots of snow and ice everywhere. When I walked down the street to my home, I helped a woman who was desperately getting rid of the snow on and around her car because she was in a hurry to leave for her family on Christmas eve. I helped her to move the snow and ice from her car and then together we started her car and pushed it out of the snow masses onto the street. She was so grateful and happy, because alone it would have taken hours.

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When I was on my way back to my hometown for christmas the trains were all late. The “Deutsche Bahn” had big problems with the low temperature. Because of this it was very hard to find the right train. I saw an old man, looking on the schedule for the next train to Mannheim. The train was leaving from another platform than usual. I told him that his train is leaving from another platform and brought him and his luggage to his train.  He was really happy to get finally in the train and thanked me.

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I do not remember the day but it was soon after our last meeting before the holidays started maybe it even was on my way home from class of love. I was standing in the bus and a girl missed to get off on time so the door closed. She wanted to call: “Could you please open again” but she could not because she happened to be an Asian exchange student. So I automatically shouted: “Türe bitte nochmal öffnen!” The doors opened once again and the girl turned around and said with a warm smile:”Thanks”. Helping this stranger made me happy this day.

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A few days ago I helped an old lady to get downstairs at the train station in Lüneburg. It has been really icy that day and it was difficult for her to make the way down.

She was really surprised that I recognized she needed help without her asking.

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There were not many people waiting when an older lady walked to the ticket machine, which was standing right next to me. I saw that she didn’t exactly know how to handle the machine so I walked over and asked if she needed help.  She accepted my help because nowadays those machines are really modern, have different sections to choose from and seem to be really difficult for older people. So I helped her buying a train ticket to Hanover. She smiled at me and I could see that she was really glad and thankful. I wished her a good day and said goodbye.

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An act of kindness to a stranger.. I'm trying to buy monthly the "Hinz + Kunz". Homeless people are selling this magazine. Also I helped an old woman in the bus a few days ago. When it was snowing a few weeks ago I bought a sandwich for a homeless guy and food for his dog.

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At home I am the eldest daughter, granddaughter and everything. The last years of my grandmother’s life weren’t her best, and I used to help her in everything I could.  Since then I learnt that old people aren’t able any more to do many things as they used to. So I help them just as I did with my grandma, because it doesn’t cause me any damage to help them with their bags, or giving them my seat at the bus.

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I am working at the counter of a grocery store from time to time. The days before Christmas there were a lot of people in the store, everyone seemed to be afraid of not buying enough stuff for the celebrations. So there were a lot of people at my counter and sometimes occurred queues so people had to wait and became impatient. A very old man came and wanted to pay but had some problems with counting the small money, because he couldn’t see that well and his hands were shaky. It took longer and longer. Some people were already complaining. So I helped him counting his money and calmed him by saying that everything is all right.

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