Every once in a while something happens to make you remember, deep down, we’re all really the same.
On a human-to-human level, you know?
This week there wasn’t not just one, but three things that made me smile and in case you might need a little pick-me-up, I thought I would share.
Putting Life in Perspective
First, my heart swelled for a co-worker. I try to not talk about my day job too often, but this story is just so wonderful.
A few days weeks ago I learned through an office-wide correspondence that a girl in our sales department was in a horrible car accident which resulted in the loss of her right arm. At first, I was in total shock.
LOST AN ARM PEOPLE.
But then, my entire office of 4,000 + people held a fundraiser.
In a matter of hours we raised over $25,000 for Krystal.
Isn’t that awesome?! For most of us, this huge act of kindness was for someone we had never met. Although, I actually have met her. She shadowed me for a day to learn about social media and marketing. When I heard the news I broke down in tears, naturally.
Then again reading her thank you email brought even more immediate tears.
Talk about a fighter…And I thought I had a positive attitude!
My coworker takes positivity to a whole new level.
She closed her note about the accident with a courageous message: “At the end of the day, its just an arm. I’m not dead and I’m thankful. Life goes on.”
A thousand hugs for wonderful people…right?
Good Things Come In Packages
On my way home from errands one day I remembered my great uncle had accidentally sent me a package to an old address. It’s been over a month, but on a whim I stopped at the house to leave a note for the current tenet.
To my surprise, I saw a package on the stoop. Now, the odds that it was my package was slim to zero. Being the creeper I am, I ventured onto the porch.
Now, you are not going to believe me, but it turned out it was my package!
Who would have thought?! Happiness moment #2 (For my little man too, since it was a birthday gift for him!)
Never Take Water for Granted
Every year in honor of his birthday my friend (or mate, he’s Australian) donates his birthday in honor of the most awesome charity on the planet, charity:water and ever year I donate to support his cause.
Instead of dinners or drinks or gifts, he just asks for donations to help bring clean drinking water to underserved areas of the world.
He first starting doing this a few years ago and has donated his birthday every year since. He shares,
“Three years ago we built a well (that’s still pumping) in the Central African Republic. Two years ago we helped fund a drilling rig that I was able to see in Ethiopia a few months ago. Last year we did our best yet and raised $17,000 to build a tap stand for an entire village in Rwanda.”
For his 30th birthday this year he’s going HUGE and plans to run the Philadelphia marathon IN A SPEEDO. Which, given his past record he WILL do and you can bet it’ll be an America flag Speedo at that.
Here’s the catch: He’ll only do it if he raises $30,000, which is more than $10,000 more than he raised last year.
Check out his hilarious fundraising page and the video below to learn more about it. I encourage you to donate, if its something you believe in and help bring those in need clean drinking water.
At the end of this week it feels amazing to know there still are good people in the world. Good people who donate money to great causes and just do the right thing… human to human.
Photo uploaded to Flickr Creative Commons.
