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Jon Potter was filling up his car at a Pittsburgh gas station when a woman approached and asked for a ride to battered-women’s shelter. He said no.

© Courtesy of Jon Potter/Courtesy of Jon Potter Jon Potter, 29, fixing rotted porch posts in Pittsburgh for someone for free. (Courtesy of Jon Potter)

She walked away, and he quickly felt a wave of regret. He got out of his car to look for her, but she was gone. Feeling terrible, he vowed to be kinder next time a stranger needed help.

A few weeks later, in the spring of 2015, he saw his opportunity when someone on a Pittsburgh Reddit group needed a hand installing a television antenna. Potter, who is handy, did it for no charge and felt great about it. Then someone on the same Reddit group asked for a cat sitter and he jumped at the chance.

“It snowballed from there,” said Potter, 29. “I decided that for the next year, if anyone asks me for help, as long as it’s legal and as long as it won’t harm anyone else, I’d do it. It sounds ridiculous, but I did it.”

Soon, he was committing near-daily acts of kindness in the Pittsburgh community: helping someone repair vinyl siding, moving furniture, fixing a leaky roof, changing a grandmother’s tire on the side of the road. All for free. He even raised $700 for a teen in his community who was injured while stopping a hate crime.

His one year of goodness was so fulfilling that he’s turned it into a four-year stretch of saying “yes” to random requests from strangers, gaining Potter fame in Pittsburgh for his hundreds — perhaps thousands — of kind acts, winning him awards, and making him the subject of local media attention.

“There is this Reddit lore of him,” said his friend Johann Guldenschuh, who met Potter when Potter agreed to help Guldenschuh and his wife move to the Pittsburgh area in 2017. “There are all these legends of these cool things he’s done, and they’re true.”

On Reddit, person after person gushes about how Potter (username pghparagliding) offered to help when it was most needed. Guldenschuh is one of them, writing:

“I cannot say enough about u/pghparagliding – he has helped my wife and I on numerous occasions. He helped me out by finding a temp place to stay when my job was transferred & other housing fell through; then arranged for permanent housing in a situation that has been incredible in so many ways (not to mention being a couple of blocks from this amazing guy)! Jon, it is an honor to have you in my life and to consider you a friend!”

Another user wrote:

“Hey, about two and a half years ago you bought me groceries during what was the de-facto darkest point in my life. I’m sure I’ve gotten lost in the sea of good deeds, but that little moment helped me bounce back in a big way, and I just wanted to say thank you one last time.”

Potter upped the ante on his generosity last week, donating a kidney to a stranger after seeing on Reddit that a Pittsburgh father of two was in need of a transplant.

The man, Michael Moore, 57, had put out a plea on social media through his daughters.

© Michael Moore/Michael Moore Michael Moore and his daughter Sara Moore at a Pittsburgh Penguins game in January. (Courtesy of Michael Moore)

“What are the repercussions of giving a kidney to someone?” responded Potter, who saw the post late at night. “I’m at the point in the night where I’d be open to giving a kidney to a stranger.”

Never one to back down from a good deed, he found out he could live a long and healthy life with one kidney. Then he got tested and learned he was a perfect match for the man in need.

He had to do some convincing to get his wife of about year, Rachel Adler, on board, but she came around to the idea. The surgery was Aug. 13, and both men are in recovery and doing great.

© Rachel Adler/Rachel Adler Jon Potter, on Aug. 13, after donating a kidney to Michael Moore. (Courtesy of Rachel Adler)

“I’m just blown away by the fact he was willing to do it,” Moore said, detailing the many appointments, tests and rigorous screening process Potter went through.

In the months before the donation, the two men met and became close friends. Per doctors orders, Potter had to lose 20 pounds before the surgery, which he did. He also overheard Moore saying he was going to install a French drain in his backyard and offered to help.

“He goes, ‘I won’t charge you anything for it,’ ” Moore said, laughing. He insisted on paying Potter for his work.

Before Potter’s do-gooder lifestyle began four years ago, he was a paragliding flight instructor, and most of his work hours fell on weekends. He was generally free on weekdays and had what he described as a bare-bones lifestyle. Instead of trying to earn more money during the week, he made the decision to dedicate himself to helping others.

It’s had a profound effect on Potter, who says he has struggled with depression and anxiety since he was 8 years old. Last year, he was diagnosed with high-functioning autism and said the realization was a “huge puzzle piece” in his life. He said that pushing himself to interact with people by helping them has given him new appreciation for others.

“I trust a lot more now than I did in the past,” he said. “I trust people’s intentions more.”

Two years ago, he formalized what he does by creating the website Pittsburgh Good Deeds, where people can ask for help and also volunteer their services. Potter now works as a handyman, and when he quotes his clients a price, he tells them to pay what they can. He said enough people pay the full price to keep him afloat.

“I get what I need,” he said. “I’m not very religious, but at this point I definitely believe there’s an order to my life and there’s an order to the universe, and I believe the order is good.”

Are some people he’s helping scamming him? Maybe. He said it doesn’t matter.

“It’s worth the risk of getting scammed compared to the possibility of helping someone or saving somebody’s life,” he said.

He gave a recent example of a father who posted on Reddit that he was thinking of killing himself because he was going through a separation from his wife and he needed an immediate $2,000 to pay his bills.

“Everyone was like, ‘This guy is a scam,’ ” Potter said. “I was like, ‘It might be true. What if he’s really going to kill himself?’ ”

Potter ended up going to the man’s house and lending him the money — the most he’s ever lent out — and said the man was extremely grateful and is already starting to pay him back.

“It’s very sobering,” Potter said. “No one else was going to help this guy. In the past, I never would have said yes.”

Another example: Early in his kindness blitz, someone posted on Reddit at 1 a.m. that a friend who had just graduated from high school had lost his wallet, was stuck at a party and needed a ride home in the sweltering summer heat. Potter said other Reddit users were giving the guy a hard time, saying “find your own ride” and “who is going to give you a ride at 1 a.m.?”

“Everyone was bashing on him,” Potter said.

But Potter had a feeling about it. He put his Rottweiler in his car in case he needed protection and picked up the teen. On the ride home, Potter ended up talking through some of the teen’s problems with him.

“He said he didn’t want to go to college — he just wanted to stay around town and sell drugs. I told him, ‘Maybe you don’t want to do that,’ ” Potter said. “We talked for 30 minutes about his doubts. He sent me a note later and said thank you.”

And Potter’s generosity has inspired others. When a local group awarded him $500 for being an exemplary community member, he posted about it on Reddit — “I have $1500 that I’m giving away” — and asked who needed the money.

Several people responded that they needed help, and others contacted him to donate more money. In the end, he had $1,500 to distribute. He posted that he used the funds to help two people get bus passes for work transportation, buy groceries for several other people, pay a gas bill for another, fund new shoes for a struggling nurse with foot troubles, contribute to a service trip in Costa Rica — and for many other causes.

© Courtesy Rachel Adler/Courtesy Rachel Adler Jon Potter and Rachel Adler eating cake at their wedding celebration in June 2018 (Courtesy of Rachel Adler)

Potter said helping others has brought on a big turn for the better in his own life, especially by keeping his depression and anxiety at bay. He highly recommends his unusual lifestyle and likes encouraging others to help people when they can.

“Even me, with all these hindrances,” he said, referring to his autism and anxiety. “If I can do it, you can too.”

https://msn.com/en-us/news/good-news/i-have-dollar1500-that-im-giving-away-man-becomes-legend-for-extreme-acts-of-kindness-toward-strangers/ar-AAGaMxk?li=BBnb7Kz

 

 

 

 

 

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This was on my mind from the moment she got out my car, so I had to contribute can u imagine waiting till Christmas just to get a robe, house shoes and a outfit for church, we tend to take things for granted, but why not help someone else if u can #helper #Christmas #timhortons #oldnavy #uber #rides #conversation #lovethyneighbor #bekind #respect #alllove #goodspirits #goodvibes #love #makesomeonesday #buffalo #ny #716 #gooddeeds #smiled #ismiledtoday #depression #uber

A post shared by Miyah_jabs (@miyah_jabs) on Aug 3, 2019 at 8:51pm PDT

An Arkansas woman went to a local Payless that was closing down and walked away with more than just a few pairs of shoes for her three children.

Carrie Jernigan, of Alma, was checking out at the store in May when her oldest daughter, who “has the biggest heart,” asked her if they could buy a pair of Avengersshoes for a fellow student whose shoes were too small for him, according to CBS affiliate KFSM.

“I was like, ‘Of course,’ ” Jernigan told the news outlet. “I just said, ‘How much for the rest of the shoes in the store?’ I was almost joking and I could see the clerk’s face and her wheels start to turn and she finished checking me out. She said, ‘Can I have your number?’ “

The district manager then called Jernigan — who expected there to be around 200 to 300 shoes left — and told her that there were almost 1,500 shoes she could purchase because of a new shipment they received that day.

“I always tell my kids, if you ask them what they want to be when they grow up, they say be kind, and so I don’t care what they do in life as long as they are kind and good people,” Jernigan told KFSM. “And so it just reiterates to me that their hearts are in the right place, and if it’s in the right place they can do amazing things.”

According to Money, the 37-year-old lawyer and local school board’s president “took home nearly $21,000 worth of merchandise — the majority of which she saved from the store’s blowout sale.”

Jernigan “intends to donate roughly 1,100 pairs to kids and local schools and give the remaining shoes to adults in need,” Money reported.

Payless announced earlier this year that they will be shutting down all 2,100 of its stores in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

“Payless will begin liquidation sales at its U.S. and Puerto Rico stores on February 17, 2019, and is winding down its e-commerce operations,” a Payless spokesperson confirmed to CNN Business, adding that “this process does not affect the Company’s franchise operations or its Latin American stores, which remain open for business as usual.”

KFSM reported that Jernigan’s story has inspired others to donate, and the family is now throwing a back-to-school bash on Aug. 10 at 2 p.m. at the Alma Middle School Gym.

“They will be partnering with Kibler Baptist Church and will also be giving away school supplies,” KFSM reported.

https://yahoo.com/entertainment/woman-buys-entire-payless-store-192614663.html

© KCCI

Four years ago, one of the happiest days of Kira Conard’s life carried a cloud of sadness.

At a high school graduation party, her friends were buzzing with excitement about their next steps. Many were going to college, but the aspiring therapist in Des Moines, Iowa, scarcely had the heart to tell them she couldn’t go. Her family just couldn’t afford it.

© KCCI After having their college educations funded by a man they never met, “Dale’s Kids” talk at a dinner and honor the Des Moines carpenter who helped their dreams come true.

Raised by a single parent with three older sisters, “paying for all four of us was never an option,” she told CNN affiliate KCCI. But then she got a call from a stranger offering a scholarship.

“I broke down into tears immediately,” she said.

The man on the other end of the line told her that her dreams would be funded by an angel named Dale Schroeder.

A lifetime of honest work now benefits others

Born in 1919, Schroeder worked as a carpenter for 67 years at the same business in Des Moines. When he died in 2005, he had amassed almost $3 million in savings.

Schroeder had owned two pairs of jeans, one for work and one for church, his friend Steve Nielsen, a lawyer, told KCCI. He never married and had no living descendents.

Before his death, Schroeder walked into Nielsen’s office and told him he wanted to start a scholarship. He hadn’t had the chance to go to college but wanted others to be able to get an education.

Nielsen described Schroeder as a “blue-collar, lunch-pail kind of guy.”

Since his death in 2005, that money has been doled out to 33 Iowans.

“Dale’s Kids” met for dinner on Saturday to catch up on each other’s lives and to honor the man who made their dreams possible. They sat around the old carpenter’s lunch pail to share updates on their lives. Many are now doctors, teachers and therapists.

Conard, whose dream of becoming a therapist has been financed by the fund, is the last person to receive one of Schroeder’s scholarships; after putting 33 students through school, his fund is finally tapped out.

“For a man that would never meet me to give me basically a full ride to college, that’s incredible. That doesn’t happen,” she said.

Schroeder’s legacy lives on as Dale’s Kids are making their mark on the world.

“All we ask is that you pay it forward,” Nielsen said. “You can remember him, and you can emulate him.”

https://msn.com/en-us/news/good-news/a-carpenter-saved-his-whole-life-to-fund-college-scholarships-and-helped-33-strangers-go-to-school-for-free/ar-AAEA80e?li=BBnb7Kz

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For over 12 years, Tinney Davidson, of Comox, British Columbia, had a tradition of waving to the hundreds of students who walked by her home on their way to school.

So when they heard that she was moving into an assisted living home, they decided that it was the 88 year old who deserved one very large — and memorable — wave goodbye.

Davidson has been waving to the kids since moving into her home in 2007 with her husband, according to CBC News, and she didn’t stop after he passed away.

“I just liked the look of the children,” she told the news outlet in 2014. “They all looked in and I thought, ‘If they’re looking in, I’ll wave to them,’  and that’s how it started.”

Last Thursday, over 400 students showed up on her front lawn and gave her not only a wave goodbye, but flowers and handmade signs.

“I was shocked again that there’s so many kids that want to say goodbye to me,” she said of the moment, which was captured on video.

In 2014, Highland Secondary School held an assembly in her honor to recognize what she’s done for the community, and in 2016, 70 teenagers from school brought her cookies and Valentine’s Day cards, according to CBC.

“I was just enthused by them. They’re just wonderful children. They just make me feel so good,” she told the news outlet at the time. “You know, it’s just, ‘Love you, you’re wonderful, you’re amazing,’ love and kisses and everything else.”

She added: “Well, I think I’m just the luckiest lady alive, really and truly. I have so much joy from them.”

https://msn.com/en-us/news/good-news/woman-88-has-been-waving-from-her-window-for-12-years-%E2%80%94-now-400-kids-give-their-final-goodbye/ar-AAAKLlb?li=BBnb7Kz

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Rewind, Fast Forward, Play. Those buttons mean the world to a man named who bought a VCR from eBay.

© Vanessa Diaz/ Book Catapult owners Seth Marko and Jennifer Powell (Vanessa Diaz)

Hearing that your husband needs immediate open-heart surgery is terrifying, especially when he’s been healthy his whole life.

When Jennifer Powell heard the sudden news about her husband, Seth Marko, 43, she spun into action. First, she found care for their 3-year-old daughter, Josephine, so she could be at the hospital for her husband’s 10-hour surgery.

Then Powell’s mind went to their “second kid” — the Book Catapult — the small independent bookstore the couple owns and runs in San Diego. Their only employee had the swine flu and would be out for at least a week.

Powell, 40, closed the store to be with her husband in the hospital. She didn’t know for how long.

Her close friend Scott Ehrig-Burgess and his wife were watching Josephine. But Ehrig-Burress, who works at another bookstore in town, wanted to help more.

“We were all sort of overwhelmed and in shock,” Ehrig-Burgess said.

He thought maybe he could help with the Book Catapult. He had worked there a few times when his friends first opened the store, in late 2017. He still had the keys, he knew how to work the register. He could try to keep it afloat.

“I thought, ‘I’ll pretend this is my store for the week,’ ” Ehrig-Burgess said.

He started calling mutual friends in the book-selling community to tell them that Marko was in surgery.

“People were like, ‘What can I do to help? Do you need somebody to be in the store?’ ” Ehrig-Burgess recalled. “I called four booksellers and had four volunteers.”

Within a day of Marko’s Jan. 27 surgery, Ehrig-Burgess had eight volunteers to help him keep the store open. They all worked at competing bookstores in the San Diego area and were willing to juggle their schedules or work during their free time to pitch in. One couple came down from Los Angeles.

“Once I started to tell our book-selling friends what was going on, I had an entire roster,” Ehrig-Burgess said.

Each morning, he would go to the bookstore he manages, the Library Shop. Then at noon, he’d race across town to the Book Catapult to open it and give instructions to the volunteer. Then he’d head back to work.

“I’d train them how to use the point of sale, wait a few minutes to be sure nothing caught on fire, then leave,” he said. “I’d call every hour to be sure everything was okay.”

Then he’d return at 6 p.m. to close up.

“The customers didn’t even know,” Ehrig-Burgess said.

Marko’s surgery was a success. Ehrig-Burgess went to visit his friend in the intensive care unit and told him the Book Catapult was open.

Marko said he was overwhelmed.

“I probably cried a little bit,” he said. “The bookstore is like having a kid. You put so much into it.”

After about a week, the Book Catapult’s full-time employee, Vanessa Diaz, recovered from the swine flu and came back. Powell and Marko’s parents flew in to help out.

Marko was in the hospital for 11 days and is now home recuperating. He fatigues easily and is unable to lift more than a few pounds, so the friend-volunteers are still around when needed. Marko plans to return to his second job, as a sales representative for a book publisher, in April.

“We’re slowly pivoting toward putting it back on them,” said Ehrig-Burgess, who also started a GoFundMe for Powell and Marko. “They’re doing 80 percent now.”

Julie Slavinsky, 57, who works at the independent bookstore Warwick’s, is one of the volunteers who helped out. Slavinsky said when Ehrig-Burgess called to let her know about Marko’s heart, she offered to volunteer at the Book Catapult that Saturday. She and Marko used to work together at Warwick’s.

“People don’t like to ask for help. You have to say, ‘Hey, I have a few hours, do you need me?’ ” Slavinsky said.

While she was volunteering at the store, she rang up some customers and suggested titles to others. When a rainstorm caused water to leak through a window, she moved book displays around. Then she came back the following week to run an event, a reading from an author.

Slavinsky said although the Book Catapult is, strictly speaking, a competitor to her employer, she doesn’t see things that way.

“The book world is a little bit different,” she said. “I see this as helping somebody in the community. It’s the community coming together.”

Powell said she can’t offer enough thanks to all those who have helped her and her husband.

“Seth is the guy who is always the reliable one,” she said. “It’s bouncing back to him when he most needs it. It’s nice to see that happen.”

Powell also said the past few weeks have been an affirmation that she and her husband “did the right thing.”

“Maybe opening a bookstore wasn’t as crazy as we thought,” she said.

https://msn.com/en-us/news/good-news/a-bookstore-owner-was-in-the-hospital-so-his-competitors-came-and-kept-his-shop-open/ar-BBU3vNa?li=BBnb7Kz

SEAL BEACH (CBSLA) — Donut City owner John Chhan just wants more time with his ailing wife, so his customers are helping out, a dozen doughnuts at a time.

Chhan and his wife, Stella, have owned Donut City in Seal Beach for three decades. The couple came to Orange County as refugees from Cambodia in 1979. Since then, they’ve worked side by side every morning to serve doughnuts at their Pacific Coast Highway shop – until recently.

“Hey come and support this guy’s donuts,” one customer said, flashing a thumbs up sign. “He’s a great man, great cause.”

Customers who missed Stella Chhan’s presence behind the counter were shocked to discover she had suffered an aneurysm. She’s alive, but is weak and in rehab, and John Chhan rushes home every day to be with her as soon as the shop sells out of doughnuts.

Chhan declined customers’ offer to set up a GoFundMe account for the couple, saying he simply wants more time with his wife. Instead, customers have endeavored to help Donut City sell out early every day so he can return to the rehabilitation center where she is recovering.

“She can talk, she can write,” Chhan said of his wife’s progress. “Right now she’s trying to start…eat something.”

The shop’s customers spread the word on newsletters and by word of mouth, and have asked everyone buying doughnuts to buy a dozen at a time.

“It’s a blessing really,” the unidentified customer said. “We need more people like that to just help everybody out in whatever need they have.”

https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2018/11/02/customers-help-doughnut-shop-owner/

For several minutes, Ryan Hamilton watched as a blind man tried to hail a cab while Chicago Cubs fans poured out of Wrigley Field.

The Chicago resident was on a rooftop across the street when he noticed thousands of people passing the man, who was holding a walking stick and waving his hand in an attempt to stop a taxi. 

Not one car stopped — but luckily, a pedestrian did.

Casey Spelman, of Indianapolis, was visiting friends in the area and spotted the blind man, who was identified as Yusef Dale, an assistant U.S. attorney in Chicago, as she walked out of a Wrigleyville restaurant. Without a word, Spelman split from her friends, walked over to Dale and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Do you want some help getting a cab?” Spelman asked.

“He said, ‘Yeah, you sound pretty, so cabs will probably stop for you before me,'” Spelman recalled Dale joking.

They chatted about baseball and how crowded the area was after a Saturday afternoon game as Spelman stepped out into the street to flag down a cab. Within minutes, a taxi pulled up and Spelman helped Dale inside, giving him a hug goodbye in the process.

“We laughed and exchanged goodbyes and went our separate ways,” Spelman told CBS News.

The 26-year-old didn’t think anything of her encounter with Dale. But Hamilton, who was watching from above, was so touched by the kind gesture he posted pictures of the pair on Facebook, praising the woman for lending a helping hand.

“There was a blind Cubs fan trying to hail a cab for several minutes until the lady came up and asked him if he needed help hailing a cab. She stood there with him until one pulled up,” Hamilton wrote in the post that has since gone viral with nearly 8,000 shares. “Awesome to see such kindness in a world.”

The next day, Spelman was surprised to see photos of herself and Dale online.

“It was a strange feeling to see photos of yourself that you did not know were taken,” Spelman said. “Not only did I not realize anyone was watching, but I had no idea it would have such an impact on people.”

Hundreds of people commented on Hamilton’s post, thanking Spelman for stopping.

“Such a simple pure gesture of true genuine humanity as it should be, virtuous. Kudos! An honor to witness,” one Facebook user wrote.

“As a person who is legally blind and in a wheelchair myself, God bless you,” another commented. “It’s not as easy as one thinks asking for help or hailing a taxi.”

Spelman is glad her post is inspiring others and hopes others will step outside of their comfort zones if they encounter a similar situation.

“It’s OK if you are unsure of how to interact with someone, but do your best, be brave, and just be willing to help,” she said. “I think if you treat someone with respect it will always be appreciated.”

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