When a homeless man was struggling, and deeply feeling unlovable on Valentine’s Day, a kind little girl brought him a cupcake, and it inspired him to turn his life around.

Daniel Lopez first came to Spokane, Washington, when he was 30 years old. As a baby, his mother had dealt with a meth addiction, and his father was not present in his life. His grandmother adopted him when he was 4 years old, but his difficult childhood led to his own substance issues. Years later, after his grandmother had passed, he took a bus to Spokane and ended up becoming homeless.

Feeling depressed, hopeless and unloved while he held a sign asking for spare change each day, Daniel was considering taking his own life. Then randomly on Valentine’s Day while he was holding his sign and feeling deeply alone, a little girl walked up to him, handed him a cupcake, and wished him a Happy Valentine’s Day.

“I gotta tell my Valentine’s Day story,” Daniel shared in a post online. “Valentine’s Day 2013 was the last time I ever panhandled. I was homeless, staying at the UGM [shelter], flying a sign in front of Walmart. This little girl came up to me and said, “Happy Valentine’s Day,” and handed me a cupcake. Then she hopped in the backseat of her mom’s car and drove off.”

As the little girl drove off, her pure and innocent act of kindness made the deeply hurting Daniel feel loved, if even for just a moment. He stared at the cupcake with tears in his eyes, folded up his sign, and decided to change his life by checking in to a teen rehab program.

“I looked at that cupcake and folded up my sign, and walked up the road crying, because at the time I felt so unloved. About 2 weeks later I was in a drug rehab program (Spokane Teen Challenge). You never know whose life you can change by being kind. Happy Valentine’s Day to that little girl.”

Daniel is now a very well known artist in Spokane, who goes by the name godffiti. He’s no longer alone, and he is regularly hired to paint beautiful murals around town.

 

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Many of the residents love seeing his artwork as they drive around, and Daniel deeply appreciates that love.

 

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“Like one lady said she and her 80-year-old mom go on drives, and her mom loves to find my new murals,” Daniel said. “I’m just doing my own thing, and to learn someone loves me? It’s so great.”

 

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A post shared by Daniel Lopez (@godffiti)

You are Loved.

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A kind high school student is baking and delivering cookies for 20 of her neighbors each month to “make someone smile.”

Elise Chang, a senior at Towson High School in Baltimore, MD, has been baking cookies each month and bringing them to numerous houses in her neighborhood. Her goal is to bring a smile to her neighbor’s faces, and to show that somebody cares about them.

“The other goal is to make connections with my neighborhood, and it’s going well!” Elise said.

Elise bakes and then drops of small cookie surprise packages to roughly 20 houses in her community; some go to neighbors who she knows, and then some go to neighbors who she does not yet know. She named her cookie service the “Tough Cookie Project”, as the past few years have been tough for many of us, and everyone deserves a reward for making it through them.

“The recipients of my cookies are people I know and don’t know. I’m trying to branch out and meet neighbors I’m unfamiliar with,” she said.

Elise attaches a note with the cookies to introduce herself and to let her neighbors know the purpose behind the cookies.

“Hello! My name is Elise Chang and I’m a rising senior at Towson High School,” her notes read. “I’d like to share with you all The Tough Cookie Service Project. It’s something that I’ve been working on since fall 2020. I was inspired after reaching out to friends and dropping off cookie care packages for them. The pandemic and isolation we’ve all experienced has made me realize that people are incredibly resilient. But it also made me realize that this world is always in need of more kindness. That’s my project’s main goal– to spread kindness (and cookies)! And as life begins to return to normal, I hope the Tough Cookie Service Project encourages others to share small acts of kindness with family, friends, neighbors and strangers. So, expect small cookie packages to start showing up around our community! From one tough cookie to another, Elise Chang.”

The cookies and very thoughtful note have moved many hearts in her community, and many of her neighbors have brought her thank you notes.

“A child sent me a cute letter and a painted rock as a thank you for the cookies. She also said she’d pay forward the kindness. I’ve received letters and notes from children and adults, from neighbors and anonymous writers,” Elise shared.

“The first letter came from an elderly neighbor of mine, and she hadn’t been home when I dropped off the cookie care package, but she told me she came home and she cried when reading through it because it was a little check in, you know, someone reaching out, and saying like, ‘Hey! I care for you!’ She came by and delivered a hand note to me, and told me what I’m doing is great, and that inspired me to keep going.”

Elise bakes chocolate chip cookies, and has her own way of using butter and an adjusted baking temperature to keep the cookies soft.

“People really seem to enjoy them, and I have fun baking them. I use the Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. My mom baked them all the time when I was younger and it’s my favorite now.”

For Elise, she feels joy in connecting and in giving gifts, and also understands the importance of practicing kindness as often as possible.

“I’ve connected with more people than I could have imagined. I’ve started doing more random acts of kindness throughout the days. This world is always in need of more kindness. Whether it’s smiling at someone or giving away cookies, our actions hold much more meaning than we think. I feel hopeful about the future, regardless of what happens. I’ve seen how resilient kindness is in the face of a crazy, hectic world. At the end of the day, we’re all tough cookies,” she said.

“I love random acts of kindness. You can just make someone smile when they weren’t originally or they’ll just be thinking about you or what you’ve done and want to continue giving kindness to others, which is really important to me.”

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During a delivery, a kind deliver driver shoveled the snow off the stairs of an 87-year-old woman’s home.

When Susan’s 87-year-old mother noticed that someone had shoveled her stairs in Nahant, Massachusetts, she was deeply grateful. She told her daughter of the stranger’s kindness and they decided to check their driveway camera footage to see who had helped.

They found that it was a delivery driver named Joshua Walsh, who works for his dad’s company John’s Oil. 

He had stopped by to refill the fuel tank with heating oil, and after seeing that the elderly woman’s stairs were covered with snow, he grabbed her shovel and cleaned the stairs up before he left.

Susan contacted the owner of John’s Oil, who is Joshua’s dad, to thank him and let him know that he raised a great son.

Many hearts online were grateful for Joshua’s kindness.

“So kind,” wrote Marijean H.

“Thank you for looking out for our senior citizens, and for having a beautiful heart,” commented Marianne S.

“Love and thoughtfulness are such a joy to see,” shared another.

You are Loved.

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After seeing a 16-year-old student eat lunch by himself each day, a kind group of classmates invited him to regularly sit with them for lunch.

Kay Kirby’s adopted son, 16-year-old Andrew, is a shy, sweet young man, but often finds himself alone in social settings.

“He’s more of a loner,” his mother explained. “He’s a good kid, but he’s just different. It doesn’t make him odd or bad. He’s very loyal and everybody that meets him, loves him.”

Andrew spends much of his time day alone at school, and usually eats at a table alone. Knowing how lonely her son must be breaks Kay’s heart, so for years she has texted Andrew to talk with him during his lunch hour and to ask how he is doing and if he is sitting together with anyone.

“When he’d say, ‘No,’ I would have to turn my head a lot of time [and try] not to cry,” Kay said. “He would say, ‘Mom, it’s ok. I get on my phone, so I don’t notice.'”

“I sat at my desk at work and I just prayed. I said, ‘Lord, please send somebody to eat with him.'”

As Andrew began his Junior year, a group of students approached him and asked if he would like to sit with them during lunch. They were part of the student council and always ate together, and they invited four students who they noticed eating alone to join them during their lunches. While a seemingly simple gesture, both Andrew and Kay were deeply grateful for their kindness.

“This is a SHOUT OUT to the Boiling Springs High School Student Council,” Kay wrote in a post online, “because today I texted Andrew at lunch (Like I often do because he normally eats alone and it breaks my heart) and he was eating alone… But as soon as he got in the car after school he said, “Mom, I didn’t eat alone! Some student council members asked me and 3 others eating alone to come sit with them, and said we could eat with them again tomorrow too!”

“This has been a concern of ours every year. The thought of our son or any child eating alone every day breaks our heart. These students may not have thought this was a big deal, but it was an answer to a prayer and a great encouragement for Andrew. THANK YOU to those students, you made a difference today!”

Andrew’s mother feels a sense of relief for her son, and appreciates that there are kind students at his school willing to reach out with a hand of inclusion to other students who may seem shy or different.

“It’s very encouraging to know that there are teenagers out there that took their time. They took their time to reach out to somebody who might be different. And you know, you never know what a child is going through — maybe they’ve got a bad home life, maybe they’re depressed, and there’s a kid sitting by themselves… and they noticed that. The peace I have now at lunch… I don’t feel like I need to text him and check on him.”

One of the students who invited Andrew shared how they would want someone to do the same for them if they were always eating alone.

“If we were sitting by ourselves, we would want someone to sit with us, so we didn’t want kids to have to sit by themselves,” the student said.

“Everyone needs to have someone, and anyone can be a help with that,” added another of the student council members.

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A kind second grader used his free time to make and sell custom keychains, and then donated all of his profits to pay off the school lunch debt of his friends and classmates.

8-year-old Keoni Ching heard his parents talking about NFL star Richard Sherman, and how he had personally donated $27,000 to pay off a school’s student lunch debt, and it inspired a sense of compassion in him. While his mom always pays for his school lunches, there had been times when his balance had been low, and it had worried him. He understood the value of having enough lunch money, and he thought about his friends and classmates who he knew sometimes ran out of having enough to buy their daily lunch.

“I almost ran out of lunch money, and then I thought about other kids that would run out of lunch money very quickly,” Keoni said.

“Even though I paid [his balance] 30 seconds later, that is something that has still affected him,” Keoni’s mom, April, said. “It gave me an understanding from a kid’s perspective how hard that is.”

Keoni’s school, Benjamin Franklin Elementary, has a kindness week each year, and the kind young man thought that for this year, that he wanted to do something to help pay off the lunch debt of his fellow classmates who may struggle to afford daily meals. With the help of his parents, he was able to get materials to make keychains which spell people’s names and also various positive words. His plan was to sell them for a $5 donation, and then to give the proceeds to pay any outstanding lunch debt at his school.

Keoni made hundreds of keychains, and even his grandparents and his little brother spent some time helping him in his kindness project.

Many kind hearts purchased Keoni’s keychains, and one person whom the family did not know even donated $1,000 for a single keychain.

“I can’t even tell you how generous people have been,” Keoni’s mom said. “One gentleman [whom the family did not know] donated $1,000.”

“He just said that for an 8-year-old to want to do something so nice for other people, and have it be nothing more than wanting to help his friends at school, that touched him.”

After a few months of Keoni’s dedication, he was able to make and sell enough keychains to raise $4,015. During his school’s kindness week, he then presented the check to his principal, Mr. Howard, to be used to pay off his classmates’ lunch debt.

They used $1,000 to cover the lunch debt of some of his own school’s students who were most in need, and the other $3,015 was used to help pay off the lunch debt of vulnerable students in six other schools in their district.

“The district [lunch] debt is about $140,000 for the entire district,” Mr. Howard said. “The reality is if a family falls behind, and especially if they’ve got multiple kids, that debt can add up quickly.”

“I think the lesson here from Keoni is that when you see a need and then you go and address the need, people notice.”

Keoni has really enjoyed being able to do something to help his friends and other students in his community, and he’s planning to continue making keychains to benefit a local children’s hospital.

“When you see the joy that your child is getting from giving to other people, there really is nothing better than that,” his mom said. “He doesn’t understand the magnitude of what he’s doing, he’s just helping.”

You are Loved.

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