Tuesday, March 29, 2011

A Small Act of Kindness Saves the Day

"Ms. Owen, Ms. Owen," I heard my name as a student I had never met approached me. I was juggling half a case of bottled water, community service day sign-up sheets, and a dvd case from fourth period before lunch. We had a training meeting during lunch for student leaders participating in our Cesar Chavez Community Service Day. When I arrived, my daughter Grace gasped through her pizza, "Mom, do you have any water?" I trotted across campus to get one of the leftover cases from a recent event and then back to the meeting. I tossed the bottles to the parched students, stayed in the lunchtime meeting for ten minutes, then headed back to take the rest of the water to my office before the start of the next class period.

As one might imagine, with all this hustling to and fro something might fall apart. I had forgotten about my cell phone and keys tucked into a shallow pants pocket and the phone went crashing to the cement after I stopped to talk on the last lap to the Tower Building.The girl looked at me very quizzically, as I didn't even realize I was missing something. She could have ignored my mishap as "one of those staff people," or she could have given the phone to someone who might have a little fun breaking into my photos and text messages. No, our students aren't that cynical anyway. They are known to do the right thing, turning in lost wallets, keys, phones and such. By her small act of kindness, this girl saved my feet from further trotting that day, making it so much easier to put myself back together after the most harried morning I can remember!

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