I never expected a quick trip to The Dollar Tree to turn into a lesson I’ll never forget. I was wandering the aisles when I noticed a woman ahead of me, slowly pushing three carts overflowing with toiletries. At first, I didn’t think much of it, but then I started to notice the impatient sighs and tapping feet of the people waiting behind her. The line was moving slowly, and frustration was building.
After about ten minutes of watching her carefully sort items into neat piles, curiosity got the better of me. I leaned over and asked gently, “Excuse me, what are you doing with all these things?” She looked up at me, her eyes warm but tired, and smiled. “I’m making care packages to send back to people in Kenya,” she said softly. Her words caught me off guard. Here she was, surrounded by chaos and annoyance, focused not on herself but on the lives of people halfway around the world.
I asked her more about it, and she shared how she had been sending supplies and small comforts to friends and distant families in Kenya for years. She talked about the joy it brought her, even when it was exhausting, even when people around her couldn’t understand why she spent so much time and energy. Listening to her, I felt a mix of admiration and inspiration. In a world that often seems to reward hurry and self-interest, here was someone quietly pouring love into something bigger than herself.
I felt an urge to help in a small way. I reached into my wallet and handed her $20. “I’d like to contribute to your care packages,” I said. Her eyes widened in surprise, and a genuine smile spread across her face. In return, I asked only one thing. “Would you take a picture with me? I want to show my third-grade students what a random act of kindness can look like.” She agreed, and we snapped a photo right there in the middle of the store, her three carts standing like monuments to her generosity.
As I left the store that day, I couldn’t stop thinking about what I had witnessed. I thought about my students and how powerful it is to see kindness in action, not just hear about it in a story. I imagined them, years from now, choosing to help someone in need simply because they had seen it modeled in a small, ordinary moment. That woman with her overflowing carts had reminded me and now my students that even in a busy, impatient world, we can still choose compassion.
I hope that my students will remember this encounter, and that one day they’ll carry forward their own acts of kindness, however small or large. Sometimes the simplest gestures, a few dollars, a shared smile, a moment of understanding, can ripple far beyond what we can ever see. And sometimes, all it takes is paying attention to notice the quiet heroes among us.
Credit: Robyn Brauer Arnold
