Kindness Is Winning
As America continues to recover from the worst medical catastrophe of the past 100 years, one remarkable legacy will be the stories of the ordinary individuals who held us together
One Hand Washes the Others
When public health officials started telling Americans that hand washing is one of the most powerful weapons against the spread of the coronavirus, Terence Lester wondered, What about the homeless? Lester had been homeless himself for a time as a teenager, and today he runs a nonprofit in Atlanta called Love Beyond Walls that helps raise money for and awareness of homeless people. He knows all too well that in the best of times they are lucky to find a public bathroom that will let them in to wash up occasionally, not to mention several times a day.
Lester’s experience creating temporary shelters with his nonprofit led him to another idea: temporary handwashing stations, the kind you see at outdoor music festivals. He mentioned the idea to his friend Lecrae Moore, a Grammy-winning Christian rapper, who eagerly donated enough money to buy 15 of the $150 washing stations. They called their project Love Sinks In. “If leaders in this country are asking people to wash their hands, we also have to provide the tools to people living on the margins of society who are more prone to catch and spread the coronavirus,” Lester says.
After its success in Atlanta, the group sent sinks to Birmingham, Alabama; Oakland, California; Columbus, Ohio; and Austin, Texas, where a partner organization installed the sinks in parks and other public spaces, thanks to a $13,000 grant from Google. (In addition to the startup funds, it costs about $500 a month to keep each sink stocked with soap and clean water.) One Atlanta hand washer, Sam, made sure his gratitude didn’t go unnoticed. He left a note on a sink that said, “Thank you all for not forgetting about us.”
Teddy Bears to the Rescue
Some of the most dispiriting victims of the virus were the nation’s schools. Education. Friendships. Recess. All put on hold, with parents filling in the gaps.
Math class in the kitchen was hard, but managing the downtime was perhaps harder as the weather turned warmer and children everywhere hungered for fresh air and adventure.
Enter the Teddy Bear Hunt. One day, bears seemed to be hiding everywhere: staring out of windows in Iowa, tucked onto porches in Maine, propped behind the steering wheels of parked cars in California. Some even turned up in New Zealand. Teddy bears can’t walk on their own, of course. They got there with the help of people who hoped that spotting a furry friend or two would entertain the neighborhood children. It was a worldwide scavenger hunt.
No one really knows where it started, though the 1989 children’s book We’re Going on a Bear Hunt was clearly an inspiration. (As it happens, the book’s author, Michael Rosen, suspected he had contracted COVID-19.)
But to grateful parents, the real source didn’t matter.
“To the parent (it’s gotta be a parent) who came up with this idea, THANK YOU,” one mom tweeted. “Explaining to a four-year-old why playdates aren’t allowed anymore is heartbreaking, so ‘going on a bear hunt’ during our walks is the distraction we needed.”
The Rent’s on Me
Clay Young could see the clouds gathering in late February. That was when Young, who owns more than 30 restored historical buildings in Jonesboro, Arkansas, got a call from one of his tenants, a restaurateur. Could Young hold off cashing the next month’s rent check for a while? Business was falling apart. Young quickly obliged, then wondered what would happen with the other five restaurants housed in his buildings. Even though he knew that he’d take a financial gut punch, Young called them all to say that April was going to be rent-free. “Pay your employees and take care of your family,” he posted on Facebook. “We will get through this together!”
Young says he lost 20 percent of his total rent income that month, but the morale boost he gave the community—and himself—was worth every penny. “I needed some good news, selfishly,” he says.
Before long, landlords around the country got the same idea. David Placek, who has 12 commercial and residential tenants in Montclair, New Jersey, gave them all a three-month rent holiday. Governor Phil Murphy
“PAY YOUR EMPLOYEES,” YOUNG SAID. “AND TAKE CARE OF YOUR FAMILY.”
was so impressed, he gave Placek a shout-out at a press conference. “David exemplifies the spirit we need to see right now, of people stepping up to make sure others can come out of this emergency stronger, and so we all come out of this stronger,” Murphy said. “Hats off, David.”
Opening Their Hearts
It was the simplest of gestures. Seeing people walking by his San Francisco apartment but unable to go outside himself, Nick Munro took a bunch of colorful sticky notes and arranged them in the shape of a heart on his living room window. Half an hour later, the neighbors across the street responded with a sticky note heart of their own. Then another neighbor did the same. Then another. And another. Surprised and delighted, Munro shared his block’s emotional
outpouring on nextdoor.com, and within two days, people all across San Francisco had joined in. He even met his neighbors across the street for the first time. The hearts drew them onto their balconies, and a new friendship began. “It’s so weird to be separated from all these people,” Munro told Reader’s Digest, “yet we’re all in it together.”
Perfect Delivery
Yanira Soriano arrived at the hospital with COVID-19 and a severe case of pneumonia—and a baby due in less than a month. “She was very scared. You could see it in her eyes. It was the most horrible thing,” says Gina Murza, MD, the chief of neonatology at Southside Hospital in Bay Shore, New York. With two lives hanging in the balance, the doctors knew they had to act immediately. Within hours, they put 36-year-old Yanira on a ventilator. The next day, they put her in a medically induced coma in preparation for a cesarean section, but not before she extracted a pledge from the staff. “She thought she was going to die,” nurse Ebony Marshall told WPIXTV. “She just asked us to promise to try to save her baby.”
And they did. Baby Walter was born happy and healthy on April 3. But his mother’s condition was still dire. She remained on a ventilator. Then, 11 days after entering the hospital, she improved enough to breathe on her own. The elated staff, now equal parts medical professionals and surrogate godparents, could not contain their joy. When Yanira’s husband, Walter Soriano Sr., arrived on April 15 to collect his wife and introduce her to the baby she had never seen, healthcare workers and balloons lined the long hospital hallways to watch as she was wheeled outside. They cheered so loudly that you wouldn’t have known they were all wearing surgical masks. “Oh my God. I’m so happy!” Marshall said. “It makes me feel like everything I do is worth it.”
The Restaurant-size Tip
Louis Galvan had just wrapped up a takeout order and was clearing off table 411, where a couple of his most loyal customers had finished dinner. Like most restaurants, Irma’s Southwest was hurting. Located a block from the Houston Astros’ Minute Maid Park, Galvan’s eatery had just staffed up for the baseball season. More than 30 of his employees were counting on a big opening day that would never come.
In the days before the governor closed his state’s restaurants, Galvan was especially grateful for regulars
LOYAL CUSTOMERS TIPPED ENOUGH TO HELP THE ENTIRE STAFF.
such as the ones at table 411. That night, they had ordered about $90 worth of food. But it was the tip they’d left behind that blew him away. Actually, it was two tips. One was $1,900 in cash. The other, written on the credit card receipt, was $7,500. The couple also left a handwritten note on the receipt: “Hold to pay your guys over the next few weeks. TY.”
“I wasn’t sure if we were going to stay open, but knowing you have somebody like that, a regular client pulling for you and your staff, we’re going to keep going,” said Galvan. He split the money equally among the employees, so everyone got about $300. What’s more, Galvan could now pay the tip forward. “If there’s anyone who does not have food to eat, or just needs a glass of water, they are welcome to come by,” Galvan said. “We are here for our community.”
Photographic Memories
What does American life look like when nobody can leave the house? Photographer Nathaniel Edmunds and his sister, Tiffany Stoner, aimed to find out. They spent weeks driving their trucks around central Indiana to photograph families on their doorsteps, in their Sunday best or in their pajamas. In the middle of a quarantine, it was hard not to despair. But Edmunds and Stoner saw something inspiring.
“Our grandparents remember the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Our parents remember where they were when JFK was assassinated. We remember the day the twin towers collapsed. Our children will remember the pandemic that led to a global quarantine,” Stoner says. “What all of these moments have in common is that people became reconnected in the midst of a crisis. Families came together. They loved more. They appreciated more. They found their way back to simplicity and togetherness by tragedy. Nothing glamorous. In their pajamas or comfy clothes. Showered or unshowered. Holding a newspaper. Eating a piece of toast. But holding tight to the people they loved the very most.”
Miles’s Birthday Parade
Miles Halishak was psyched for his sixth birthday party. He wanted to dress up as a mad scientist, and his mom was busy making decorations. But about five days before mad scientist Miles was planning to greet 40 friends and relatives at the Halishaks’ home in Mogadore, Ohio, social distancing went into effect. “We had bought everything, and it was ready to go, and we had to shut it down,” his mother, Desarae Halishak, told the Record-courier. Miles was crushed. But his parents had an idea. People might not be able to come into the house to say happy birthday, but they could drive by and do it. The Halishaks put a note on the local nextdoor.com group asking whether their guests could drop by that Monday—miles’s actual birthday—and simply wave. One wrote back asking for Miles’s favorite color. Another wanted to know what candy he liked. On Monday, the first birthday car arrived, honking like crazy. Dozens more joined in, many driven by strangers who had read about Miles’s canceled party and wanted to help him celebrate. Some waved birthday signs out their windows. Some had decorated their cars in blue (his favorite color) and threw candy. “I broke down in tears,” says Desarae. “I couldn’t believe how much love we were getting.”
To Your Health
Eight Oaks Farm Distillery in New Tripoli, Pennsylvania, was about to close its doors because of the coronavirus crisis. Then its owners realized they could use the grain they would have fermented for bourbon for another valuable commodity: ethanol, the key ingredient in hand sanitizer. Within two days, owner Chad Butters had devised a way to use his still to create pure ethanol and began churning out bottles of sanitizer by the thousands. He gave them away to hospitals, assisted living centers, and any neighbors who wanted one. The impromptu switch to the sanitizer business also allowed the distillery to keep its 25 workers employed. “We love this community,” Butters posted on Instagram, “and we love you.”
A Higher Calling
When Franklin Roosevelt was 16 and away at boarding school, he got sick and was quarantined in the infirmary. His mother was so upset at being kept apart from him that she climbed a stepladder outside his window so she could be as close to him as possible. Something similar happened to Charley Adams, only in reverse. When assisted living facilities nationwide realized they would have to turn
THE GUESTS COULDN’T COME IN, BUT THEY COULD DRIVE BY AND HONK.
visitors away to keep their residents safe, Charley was worried that he wouldn’t be able to visit his 80-yearold mother, Julie Adams. Fortunately, Charley owns a tree-care service in Youngstown, Ohio, which means he has a truck with a large extendable arm—long enough to reach his mother’s third-floor window.
“Her spirits were kind of down because she’s used to being able to get out, go places, and do things. And so I just had the idea that I’d bring the bucket truck over,” Charley says. “I called her, and I told her to come look out the window—and there I was.”
The men and women at Miamidade Fire Rescue had the same highflying idea. One of their station mates had been in the hospital because of the virus, and he was becoming pretty depressed. “It gets so isolating in here,” he said in a video later distributed by the department. One morning, a group of Miami-dade firefighters piled into a truck, drove over to the hospital, and raised the ladder to the unnamed man’s fourth-floor room. Standing at the top of the ladder, a firefighter held a handwritten cardboard sign that said “Your New Firehouse.” “This is love,” the hospitalized man said in the video, between obviously labored breaths. “This is the only kind of love you can get from the brother- and sisterhood at the firehouse. There’s just no other way to explain how this makes me feel.”