This is a weekly newsletter called Quiet Good Of The Week. It's about small, genuine acts of kindness out in the real world. Each issue has 5 short write-ups of real kindness news stories, plus one "kindness suggestion of the week." If someone forwarded you this email, sign up here. If you're already signed up, share it with others.
I've been sitting with one of this week's stories since I found it — 58 people who've been flying to the same rural hospital in Vietnam, every summer, for 34 years. I'll get to it. But first: a 21-year-old who wakes up at 2:30am, and some strangers in Montana who figured out a very good use of a Saturday morning.
This week's quiet good idea
Leave a positive review for a local business you love. Not because they're struggling, not because you want them to know you've been — just because you liked it, and someone out there is trying to decide whether to go. Angela Henson runs a front-porch bakery in Frisco, Texas (you'll read about her below), and I'd bet she's never had a marketing budget. The people who showed up at 6am with lawn chairs are the whole operation. A review is the lawn chair version for places that can't take reservations.
Five in the Morning, Coffee in Hand, Cards on Windshields
Volunteers tuck $5 coffee gift cards under windshield wipers at Montana bars. Photo: Good News Network / @the_barfairies
Somewhere in Montana, a group of volunteers called the Bar Fairies gets up at 5am on Saturdays to visit bar parking lots — not to drink, but to leave $5 coffee gift cards on the windshields of any car that's still there overnight. The idea: reward people who chose not to drive home. Tim and Kelly in Polson left cards at 8 vehicles one Saturday morning. Shannon and Brittainy covered 20 cars in Kalispell. The Montana Bar Fairies started locally but have since inspired chapters across the country. Nobody asks for credit. That's the whole point.
The Boy Who Just Wanted to Say Hi
Roman Butzlaff, 4, waves to neighbors from his home in Concord, North Carolina. Photo: CBS News
Roman Butzlaff is four years old and lives in Concord, North Carolina. His parents split up, his dad moved to Florida, his grandparents are out of state, and somewhere in there Roman got into the habit of waving at anyone who walked by his house. His neighbor Wade Fulgum noticed, crossed the street, introduced himself, and they started spending time together. Other neighbors followed. About a dozen of them now gather regularly — people who barely knew each other before a preschooler decided to say hello to everyone on the block. One of those neighbors said it plainly: "Look at what this little kid has built."
She's Up at 2:30am. Her Customers Are There by 6.
Angela Henson, 21, greets early-morning customers at Little Bit Bakery in Frisco, Texas. Photo: NBC DFW
Angela Henson is 21 and lives in Frisco, Texas. Every Saturday, she wakes up at 2:30 in the morning to start baking — sourdough, English muffins, cinnamon rolls, oatmeal cream pies — out of her home kitchen under Texas's cottage food laws. By the time Little Bit Bakery opens at 8am, people have been waiting on her front porch with lawn chairs since 6. One regular put it simply: "I think we're kind of all her aunties." Angela sells out every week. She didn't advertise. She just baked.
Someone in Westmoreland County Had $100,000 and a Quiet Conscience
Diana Holcomb, whose TV plea saved the Open Your Heart to a Senior program in Westmoreland County, PA. Photo: Diana Holcomb / WTAE
The "Open Your Heart to a Senior" program in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania was on the verge of closing. Federal funding had dried up, and Diana Holcomb — one of the seniors who relied on it — went to her local TV station to say so plainly: "I don't have anybody. Where am I going to get food? How am I going to eat?" A few days later, an anonymous donor gave $100,000 to Wesley Family Services, keeping the program running for another year. CEO Doug Muetzel said it plainly: "We had a donor come forward... and donate $100,000." Diana heard the news and started crying. "Wow. Somebody out there cares."
The Thirty-Fourth Summer
Prof. Nagato Natsume examines a child at Nguyen Dinh Chieu General Hospital, Vinh Long Province. Photo: Chunichi Shimbun / Japan Times
In 1993, a group of Japanese surgeons flew to rural Vietnam to perform cleft palate surgeries on children whose families couldn't afford the procedure. They went back the next year. And the year after that. This past spring, 58 volunteers — doctors, dentists, nurses — made the trip again to Nguyen Dinh Chieu General Hospital in Vinh Long Province. They've now performed more than 3,000 surgeries. Prof. Nagato Natsume, who has led many of these trips, said: "This is my second hometown. Every time I come here, I feel like I've come home." One mother, Le Thi Trang, was told by her husband's family to end her pregnancy when they learned the baby would need surgery. She didn't. The Japan Cleft Palate Foundation operated on her son for free. Natsume's stated goal, still, after 34 years: "We want to provide support so that more children can grow up feeling glad they were born."
That's the five for this week!
Talk soon,
Matt