The Kindest People: Be Excellent to Each Other (Volume 6)

This book contains 250 stories about good deeds, including these: 1) In 2012, David “Deacon” Jones lost his heavy gold National Football League Hall of Fame ring. He and his wife, Elizabeth, ransacked their house but they could not find it. In June 2013, he died without ever finding the ring. Guillermo Gallardo, age 55, found the ring while in a J.C. Penney’s shopping for work pants. He knew whose ring it was because “Deacon Jones” was engraved inside the ring. He turned the ring in to the Orange Police Department, who contacted Deacon Jones’ widow and arranged for Mr. Gallardo to give the ring to her. Ms. Jones told him, “I’m very seldom at a loss for words, but I don’t know what to say to thank you for this.” Mr. Gallardo replied, “There’s nothing to say. Just to see the smile on your face is worth it.” The ring had a ring guard on it — apparently to attempt to keep the ring from slipping off the finger of whoever had been wearing it for the last couple of years. Apparently, the ring guard did not work and the ring slipped off when the wearer was inspecting the same work pants that Mr. Gallardo inspected in the J.C. Penney’s. Ms. Jones said, “Somebody has been wearing it for a couple of years, and God is punishing them — or my husband is.” 2) In December 2013, Courtney Barich, an 18-year-old at Holy Cross Regional High School in Surrey, British Columbia, Canada, found a prom dress she liked — the price tag was $700. She decided not to buy the dress. She said, “We were driving in the car and I felt kind of selfish for how much it cost. My mom said, ‘You would look good in anything, even a garbage bag or a potato sack.’ And the idea kind of grew from there.” Courtney ended up using the prom — and her dress — as a fundraiser for a charity. She said, “I thought my dress should help people who are in need. I decided I don’t need to wear a fancy prom dress.” She set up a website [http://www.courtneysburlapgrad.ca] and promised to wear a burlap dress as her dress to the prom if people would donate money to a charity: the Saint Martin de Porres Orphanage in Manila, Philippines. She said, “I will give up the glitz and glam of a beautiful grad dress and I will wear a Burlap dress to grad [grade 12 prom] instead, if I can get $10,000 in much needed donations to help this orphanage.” In fact, she wore a burlap dress to her prom. Actually, it looked good — designer Suman Faulkner of Lata Design designed the burlap gown for her. Ms. Faulkner said, “For a teenager, the prom is almost like a first wedding. So for her to want to do this, it just touched my heart.” The dress she designed is a white fitted one-strap burlap gown decorated with small pink and yellow embroidered flowers. Ms. Faulkner said, “Actually, I am very allergic to burlap. So I would work for a little then walk away, then work a little more. It took me longer than it normally would.” Courtney said, “I loved it. It was better than I thought it was going to turn out.” Her mother said, “It’s been a really good learning experience.” In March 2014, Courtney and her fellow students visited the orphanage and built houses. Courtney said, “It was definitely an eye-opener to see all the poverty, from the houses they live in to what they eat. All the kids were walking around with no shoes. It was very sad. I came back grateful.”