20 Random Acts of Kindness That Changed a Life

Customers in Seal Beach, California, have been buying out Donut City's inventory every morning beginning at 4:30 a.m. this month for the sweetest reason. Clearing out the shop would allow the owner, John Chhan, more time with his sick wife, Stella, who suffered a brain aneurysm last month. The Chhans have run the doughnut shop for almost 30 years, and now the community's showing support one dozen-filled box at a time.

Walter Carr's story is one of kindness begetting kindness. The night before the 20-year-old student's first day of work in July as a mover, his car broke down. He couldn't find a ride to the site, which was Jenny Hayden Lamey's home, so he decided to walk the 20 miles from his apartment. To arrive at the job by 8:30 a.m., he had to start his journey at midnight.

On his walk, a cop ended up offering him breakfast and a ride. After hearing about what happened, Lamey started a GoFundMe for Carr with a goal of $2,000 and ended up raising more than $91,000. And Carr's new boss, the CEO of Bellhops Moving, was so impressed and inspired, he also gave the student his 2014 Ford Escape.

Therra Gwyn-Jaramillo was on the verge of a breakdown in July when the kindness of a friend and a stranger brought her the relief she needed. The Atlanta woman had lost her husband to brain cancer a few years ago and was struggling to pay the bills, care for six rescue pets, an elderly, blind chicken and her disabled brother.

A stranger in front of her in line at Whole Foods offered to pay her whole $375 bill (she was shopping there thanks to a sweet friend's $250 gift card) when their items mistakenly got mixed together. The cashier later clued her in that the kind stranger was none other than the rapper Ludacris.

"What Ludacris had no way of knowing is that his quiet kindness and generous gesture came at a moment when my candle was out," Gwyn-Jaramillo wrote.

For decades, special education teacher Genevieve Via Cava quietly saved up several million dollars. The frugal woman rarely bought new clothes (even then, usually at a discount), dined out or splurged on herself. She had no children and decided to leave $1 million from her savings to her special education students.

When she died in 2011 at age 89, her quiet fortune and generous gift was a surprise to those who knew her. Her estate was finally settled in April, and the $1 million will be used by New Jersey's Dumont School District to fund college scholarships for special needs students. Her gift will fund one or two annual $25,000 scholarships in perpetuity, starting with the 2019-20 school year.

The community in Red Deer, Canada, stunned the Kerylukes with an outstanding act of kindness at the Electric Garage Auctions in September. Ben and Marilyn Keryluke lost their son and daughter-in-law in a motorcycle crash in May. Caring for their 3-year-old and 6-year-old grandchildren with special needs brought on some additional costs that forced Ben and Marilyn to put their son's 1973 Pontiac Parisienne, which he had hoped to pass onto is children, up for auction.

What they didn't expect was for Rod McWilliams to buy it for $29,000, then donate the car right back. Then, Danny Fayad bought it for $30,000 and also gave it back. And finally Bob Bevins bought it for $20,000 and returned the car to the Kerylukes. Others donated money that brought the total up to $100,000.

There wasn't a dry eye at the auction.

Nicki Minaj made headlines by surprising Twitter fans last year when she offered to help pay for their college tuition and student loans. But what's lesser known about Minaj's kindness is that for a few years, she was quietly donating money to villages in India through the Pearl Foundation. Her efforts have helped build life-changing infrastructure, including building a clean water well and spaces to worship and learn.

Madison Palm shared a heartwarming moment between her rescue dog, Cora, and a man who was sitting by himself near their gate. During a layover at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, the corgi approached the man and plopped herself right next to him.

The stranger gave her some loving scratches, and when Palm asked if Cora was bothering him, he told her, "No, no. I lost my dog last night." Palm said her dog has a gift of knowing who's hurting and how to help.

Ugh, our hearts.

Target employee Debora Durall was feeling really down, until she witnessed a chain of kind acts in 2012. A family at the checkout with $161.85 worth of items had their card declined. When the dad stepped away to make a phone call, another customer stepped in and quietly offered to pay it all.

The generous stranger, who said she had been helped before and wanted to do this, left before the family did. The family ended up passing down the $20 bill they had to the next customer, which ended up being two teenagers who passed the remaining $11.51 to the next.

When Constable Niran Jeyanesan got called in after a teenager was caught shoplifting a dress shirt, tie and socks at Walmart, the officer decided not to arrest the 18-year-old. The Toronto teenager said his family had been suffering difficulties after his father got sick, and he was trying to get a job. Jeyanesan bought the teen his clothes instead.

As for the teen? He nailed the interview and got the job.

Judah Tyreman, a 13-year-old from Radisson, Canada, was devastated when he found out that someone had broken into his rock museum and stolen some of his specimens estimated to be worth $6,000 to $8,000. The teen had never used and never plans to use any of his parent's money to fund his museum and had hoped to expand his collection.

Fellow rock enthusiasts and experts jumped into action and donated specimens from their own collections to help Tyreman keep the museum open. The Sesula Mineral and Gem Museum seems to be rocking it now, with a 5-star rating on Facebook, and it has even hosted school tours.

Elmer Alvarez was homeless when he found a $10,000 check on the streets of New Haven, Connecticut. He knew returning it was the right thing to do, so he contacted the owner, realtor Roberta Hoskie.

Hoskie, who was once homeless herself, was moved by Alvarez's actions and surprised him by thinking long-term. She gave him a scholarship to a real estate school, career counseling, a job interview AND housing. We're not crying—you're crying!

Tony Alsup, a 51-year-old truck driver from Tennessee, bought an old bus and repurposed it to rescue 53 dogs and 11 cats from animal shelters in South Carolina before Hurricane Florence hit. He transported the animals to a Foley, Alabama, animal shelter, which has worked to relocate the animals and find them new homes.

Amy Martinez was terrified when a woman she didn't know approached her, grabbed her in a hug and forced Amy to walk away with her. The 12-year-old, who was walking to school, screamed for help. That's when another woman, who was dropping her kid off at a middle school, pretended to be Amy's mom and yelled at the stranger to release Amy.

The good Samaritan then took Amy to the safety of her car, brought her to the school and called police. The suspect was later arrested by authorities.

Professional hockey player Pierre-Cedric Labrie got the call from his partner that her water broke at around 2 a.m. in January. The first-time father only had one shot to see the birth of his child. The problem? Labrie was in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for a game and he would have to get back to Milwaukee, Wisconsin—stat.

The first flight was too late, there were no drivers for reserved cars available, and, oh yeah, there was a snowstorm in Milwaukee, so taxi drivers didn't want to take him there. A teammate suggested he call Tom McCollum, who was the goalie on the opposing team and known to be a great guy.

Even though Labrie and McCollum had never met off the ice before, McCollum agreed to let Labrie drive his truck for hours. (Did we mention this was through a snowstorm?) The new dad made it just in time at 6:15 a.m. to welcome his baby boy, who was born at 6:54 a.m.

Journalist Sarah Jane Murphy tweeted an amazing moment at a Dublin court in 2017. An Irish judge excused a 54-year-old man from jury duty because it was his "first time in love."

The whole exchange felt like something straight out of a rom-com. When the man said he couldn't serve because he had planned a long weekend away with his partner, the judge said, "Then you go, and you go with my blessing."

Now, getting arrested isn't usually something that goes on an "acts of kindness" list, but we'll make an exception for this story because it's just so sweet. A Dutch woman, Annie, approached local police asking them to "arrest" her. The thing was, she was reaching her 100th birthday and had always wanted to know what the inside of a police cell was like.

So, the Nijmegen-Zuid police handcuffed her, placed her in a cell, and took photos of her cute, happy self. Bucket list complete.

Angela McElhiney posted a video of her late son Nathan singing "Wayfaring Stranger" on Reddit, asking if anyone might know how she could fix the audio so she could better hear her son. The video, which had shuffling and coughing noises in the background, was a precious keepsake of her son, who died by suicide a month before his 16th birthday.

Soon, thousands of Redditors flooded the grieving mom's inbox with condolences and tips. Some sound editors and engineers even stayed up to send her remixed, clear-sounding versions of the performance. In them, you can hear Nathan sing, "I know dark clouds will hover o'er me/ I know my way is rough and steep/But beauteous fields arise before me/Where God's redeemed, their vigils keep."

Beer delivery men Jason Gabel and Kwame Anderson took a different route than they normally would while driving in St. Paul, Minnesota, and noticed a man hanging onto the outside of a fence on a highway overpass.

The two called 911 once they realized the man was suicidal, but knew there might not be enough time for police to get there. Anderson and Gabel ended up talking to the man for an hour, even when the cops came, and offered to share a beer.

"If you come down from there, do you want to get a drink with me and talk about what's going on?" Anderson asked the man.

The question and the outreach of strangers was enough to get him off the ledge.

Frankie Burns was only 8 years old when he found a wallet with $1,700 in it last year and knew he had to do the right thing. He brought the wallet to his dad, and the family was able to give it back to the owner identified on an ID card.

Turns out, the owner had recently been released from the hospital after a mugging and dropped his wallet. The cash was supposed to go to his rent. Frankie was rewarded $100 by the victim for his act of kindness (which the kid used on a well-deserved pair of soccer cleats).

When Lisa Nagengast from Florida dialed her brother's social worker to check if the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs would pay for an ambulance for him, she didn't realize she had accidentally called someone from Jimmy John's instead. Her brother, army veteran Greg Holeman, was recovering from spinal surgery and was having debilitating pain in his left leg.

Instead of just saying it was the wrong number and hanging up, the guy on the other end of the phone, Jason Voss, stepped up. The Jimmy John's night manager had one of the drivers, Zach Hillmer, pick up Holeman and take him to the ER, also taking the sandwich shop's "freaky fast" slogan to the next level.