Random Acts of Kindness – Volume 4

You’ve heard the phrase “throwing your money away”, but this takes it to a whole new level.

Our worldwide trip of kindness has brought us to Dublin (Ireland), Kelowna (Canada) and Staffordshire (UK) so far, and this week we’re Ohio in the US for a random act of kindness that saved a family A LOT of money.

A family was cleaning up their grandmother’s house when they accidently threw away an envelope. It wasn’t just any ordinary envelope though because inside was $25,000 in cash.

Republic Services, a waste management company based outside of Cleveland, dumps 4,500 tons of trash into a landfill six days a week. Once trash hits a landfill, it’s game over, but a frantic call from a customer saying she lost something important in the garbage was when the company got to work.

Gary Capan, a supervisor at Republic Services, sent out a team to find where the driver of the dump truck was and if he had made it to the landfill yet. Capan organized for the truck driver to drop of his load at a recycling centre nearby and his team got to work.

Ten workers searched through the trash to try and find the very expensive envelope, and only after ten minutes of work, one worker found a bag which was holding the $25,000.

Capan said that if the truck driver had reached the landfill, there was little chance of this story having a happy ending. An incredible act of kindness from the staff of Republic Services.

In this day and age, many of us are caught up in our own lives, forgetting that the simplest of things can make the most significant impact on someone else. A random act of kindness doesn’t have to be anything extravagant. Something as simple as a smile towards someone on the street could make a tough day for them a lot better.

If you turn on the news or are scrolling through your social media timelines, unfortunately a lot of what you’ll see is doom and gloom. With our Random Acts of Kindness series, we want you to share what you, a family member, a friend or a colleague has done for someone else. It doesn’t have to be someone you know either – it can be anyone or anything who has shared their kindness with the world.