Layaway Angels and Random Acts of Kindness

"Layaway angels" this year started at a Michigan Kmart, but have cropped up all over the USA.  One report estimates 1000 layaway accounts credited by anonymous donors, totalling $400,000 this season at Sears/Kmart alone.

Woman pays over $1600 in deliquent water bills about to be turned off in Iowa City so they wouldn't have to go through the holidays without water.  (Source:  article no longer available.)

Gold and diamonds have been dropped into Salvation Army kettles.

Anonymous donor saves gym which gives free memberships to low-income obese women.

Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy

The Secret Society for Creative Philanthropy, founded in 2006, is a motley crew of people who—once a year—gather in cities across the nation and tell stories about giving. To be a creative philanthropist, one must simply give (which is a great and you should do this). To be in the Secret Society, one must be gifted $100 by a CP Agent, give that money away in the best and most creative way one sees fit, and convene at the top secret annual meeting to tell one's story of philanthropic adventure. Trust us, it's amazing.

Following in the footsteps of Larry Stewart, some people have formalized the process and found regular comraderie and fun in giving creatively.  Doing sweet things anonymously for your fellow human being now has a name:  creative microphilanthropy.  

The message is simple and universal.  Leave a quarter in the vending machine refund slot.  Tape a dollar to a bag of cranberries in the store with an encouraging message.  Send people anonymous letters thanking them.  You don't have to be rich to make someone's day.  Anyone and everyone can do this.

Official website

San Francisco Gate:  Giving away umbrellas is harder than you would think

New York Times

Larry Stewart (1948 - 2007)

Larry Stewart seemed to have had bad luck financially most of his life.  He was born very poor, raised by grandparents on welfare in a home with no indoor plumbing.  As a young adult, he had bad luck with jobs, being fired one time after another.  Homeless, he walked into a diner one day after not having eaten in two days.  He ordered breakfast, then pretended he had lost his wallet.  At that point, the diner owner, Ted Horn, did something so extraordinary, he changed Larry's life.

Ted put a $20 bill in Larry's hand and said, "You must have dropped this."

Larry promised to pay it forward if he ever were able.  After several more financial failures and job losses, he actually hit it big starting a cable and long distance telephone business.  He became a millionnaire and donated an estimated $1.3 million to various charities.

But the philanthropy he was best known for was as the "Secret Santa" of Kansas City.  He would walk into places like thrift shops and coin laundries and hand out money.  Usually $100 bills.  And he liked to do it especially at Christmas time.  He kept his identity anonymous until he was going to be outed by a tabloid.  By that time, he had been diagnosed with cancer.

Before he died, he trained four others to take over as Secret Santas.  He also looked up the diner guy who inspired him and gave out money together.  Secret Santa philanthropy was born, grandfathered by a diner proprietor named Ted Horn.

Dick Kazan with Larry Stewart

Wikipedia 

Secret Santas

It is near Christmas, so it is Secret Santa week.  We will look at random acts of kindness, not necessarily limited to Christmas, but often occurring during the holiday season.  In a dog-eat-dog world of mean cynicism, kindness is simply extraordinary.

Richard Francis Burton (1821 - 1890)

Richard Francis Burton is one of the most famous polyglots, speaking as many as 29 European, Asian, and African languages.  He traveled extensively throughout Asia, Africa, and Americas, including making the Haj to Mecca in disguise as a Muslim.  Amongst his credits are translating One Thousand and One Nights (Arabian Nights), bringing the Kama Sutra to publication, and being the first European to see Lake Tanganyika.

Wikipedia

Burtoniana

Sir Richard Francis Burton

Ibn Battuta (1304 - 1368)

Imagine the 1300's.  No trains, no cars, no cruise ships.  Now imagine traveling the breadth of the known world, around 75K miles (121K km), through Europe, Middle East, Persia, India, Far East, and Africa.  On camels, donkeys, horses, boats, and your own two feet--in about 30 years.  That is serious, serious traveling.

Ibn Battuta was a Moroccan Berber who held the record as the most well-traveled man for about say, 450 years (with the advent of the steam engine).  His story as written in his book, al Rihla (The Travels), was lost for centuries before being rediscovered in Algeria in the 1830's.  (See a map comparing his travels with those of the more famous Marco Polo and Zheng He.)

Wikipedia

Islam for Today

Fordham University

Time magazine

Saudi Aramco World

Ibnibnbattuta

Nellie Bly (1864 - 1922)

Nellie Bly was the pen name of Elizabeth Jane Cochran, who pioneered undercover investigative reporting.  After ignoring her orders to stick to the gardening section of the paper, she wrote scores of articles about injustice, mostly at Joseph Pulitzer's New York World.  Although her articles ranged from abject working conditions of young girls to the political oppression in Mexico, her passion for the disenfranchised was evident in all of them.  Her most famous exposé, "Ten Days in a Madhouse," was the result of faking insanity and getting herself committed to reveal gross maltreatment and abuse in a mental asylum. 

Her biggest claim to fame was attempting to travel the entire globe in 80 days November 1889 to January 1890, like Jules Verne's fictional Phineas Fogg.  She traveled light going through France (with a stop to visit Jules Verne himself), the Suez Canal, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan, before crossing the Pacific and arriving in San Francisco.  At that point, Pulitzer chartered a private train to get her back at 72 days.

Though she is featured this week as an intrepid traveler, Nellie Bly's legacy is that of an intrepid human who knew her passions and followed them, cultural restrictions be damned.

Nellie Bly Online 

Nellie Bly's Book "Around the World in 72 Days"

Wikipedia

PBS American Experience