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"pay it forward" In spirit of the season - 11/27/2006 2:56:18 PM   
slaveaurora


Posts: 157
Joined: 6/30/2006
Status: offline 		I am sitting here watching Oprah.  She has a show on right now called "pay it forward", in which on a previous show she gave everyone in the audience a $1000 gift card with instructions to spend it on someone else.     Some of the stories I have heard today on the show have left me in tears, at how wonderful people can be.   
 
So, in the spirit of the holiday season, have any of you ever "paid it forward"?   What did you do, and how did it make you feel?  
 
I will start with something Master did a couple years ago.
 
While he was working and making his deliveries, he found a $50 bill on the street.    He made quite an effort to find out who lost it, and hung on to that bill for over 2 months.  No one claimed it.   One day while he was making a delivery to the hospital, he noticed a couple pull in to the ER with a small child.  Master said that the car they were driving hardly run, it was freezing cold outside and the child was real sick.   The couple did not have appropriate clothes for the weather, and were dressed in whatever they had.  Master said it was obvious they didn't have much.  
 
He went and bought a Christmas card, put the $50 in it, and asked the nurses in the ER to address the envelope for him and put it in the mail.    ( There was a confidentiality issue involved, and the nurses could not give Master the couples name).    Master signed the card, "Merry Christmas, from Santa".  
 
He told me later that it made him feel real good to do that for a needy family.  
 
Any other stories that you would like to share?
 
~aurora~
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RE: "pay it forward" In spirit of the season - 11/27/2006 3:06:54 PM   
pahunkboy


Posts: 33061
Joined: 2/26/2006
From: Central Pennsylvania
Status: offline 		instead of junking my last car or selling it for $300, i ran an ad on freecyle.

the recipient was able to fix the broke stuff on it and clean it up- they were barely making rent-

as it turns out- this is the guy- whom gave me my german sheppard 5 years ago.

i love her project

(in reply to slaveaurora)
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RE: "pay it forward" In spirit of the season - 11/27/2006 3:54:15 PM   
bignipples2share


Posts: 611
Joined: 4/19/2004
Status: offline 		I did something similar. I was moving and needed the use of the car till I actually moved. No time to list in any paper and the cost of moving the car would have cost more than to just replace the car. I hope it worked out for whoever. I took the car to a public parking lot, (putting on the street could have gotten it towed) put a sign on it: Free car, needs good home and new spark plugs.  Put the signed title in the glove box.
Back when it was easier for me to do this, I've seen people go to pay for gas and found they've not had all the money they thought they had and paid the difference. One person got on their cell phone, then followed me around to different stores, until their parent could get there and pay me back for the gas, even though I said not to worry about it.
There's been a few that go to pay for their groceries and been a few dollars short and trying to figure out what to take off their bill, the carrots or the cabbage, I've gone ahead and made up the difference and just told them to do the same if they saw it happen to someone else.
I had occasion to give one of my bicycles to a homeless man. His biggest problem was he no longer had a way to get to a job if he ever got one. After the loss of his job, he spiraled down faster than he could comprehend. He tried too long and too hard to pay for a mortgage he could no longer afford looking for jobs in his field that were just no longer there. Once he got the bike, he cleaned up at the local McD's till he got a job and then his own place.
When the movie pay it forward came out..it became one of my favorites.

~Big

(in reply to pahunkboy)
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RE: "pay it forward" In spirit of the season - 11/27/2006 5:57:20 PM   
LTRsubNW


Posts: 1604
Joined: 5/6/2006
Status: offline 		I gotta tell you...as much as I hate all that happy horsehit that goes on in most of today's afternoon talkshows...I travel a lot and often end up in some hotel somewhere where I have to watch (several) movies at least twice (and occasionally...Oprah), I have to say (and I don't want to hear any shit from you guys)....occasionally (and I've written them down...they weren't that fucking many...and no one has any photographs....so fuck all of you)....I've lost it (not actually crying....I was eating popcorn...got a little salt in my eye...it was nothing...)....and I gotta say....I'm a big believer in that stuff.

Done it...it don't always pay off...but that's ok.

It's all good.

< Message edited by LTRsubNW -- 11/27/2006 5:58:33 PM >

_____________________________

Small deeds will always mean more than large intentions.

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RE: "pay it forward" In spirit of the season - 11/27/2006 6:47:28 PM   
popeye1250


Posts: 18104
Joined: 1/27/2006
From: New Hampshire
Status: offline 		One time at the Polo Club another member's horse went lame so I lent him one of my ponys and his team won!

(in reply to LTRsubNW)
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RE: "pay it forward" In spirit of the season - 11/27/2006 6:57:58 PM   
NeedToUseYou


Posts: 2297
Joined: 12/24/2005
From: None of your business
Status: offline 		I don't know if this applies, but I've found 2 wallets and 1 purse(fell off the top of a car when they drove off). The wallets I just looked to see if they had ID in them and turned them in(was broke so didn't even want to see if was any money). And the purse well chased her down, and returned it. Well, if I had the purse to do again, I should of just left that one in the road, what a fucking bitch. No thanks, just snatched the purse and drove off.

Anyway, if that applies.

(in reply to slaveaurora)
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RE: "pay it forward" In spirit of the season - 11/27/2006 7:40:42 PM   
NINASHARP


Posts: 295
Joined: 4/23/2006
From: NJ/NYC
Status: offline 		Every year I play secret santa to a family that seems very obviously(to me anyways)  down on their luck. Maybe they are scraping change at the check out line before they have to put something back, or pushing laundry in a wagon to the Wash Tub. I scope them out and follow them home without their knowlede.  This year is a single mother with two children with out a car and a job who I happened to pick up walking the day before Thanksgiving, Both mom and kids were carrying grocery bags in each arm, and so I offered them a ride home. A small run down house that looked like a converted garage from the outside.  I usually focus on the kids in the family but will always buy something for everyone. I wrap all the gifts, put the tags on like "for a big sister" or "little brother", and bag them up and then leave them on their door step Christmas Eve.  

My kindness doesn't stop with the spirit of the season. I help anyone that I see that needs help. A elderly lady lost in the parking lot looking for her car, a handicap man who walks the same road every day to a bagger job at the local market, when I see him I always pull over and offer him a ride.  I've pulled over for those who have car troubles and offer them rides or the use of the phone to call someone. Once I donated a car to a friend who had wrecked hers and hadn't paid her insurance premium. 

Just reading over what i just typed. I had to edit some things out. I don't do this so I can annouce how good of a person I am. I usually never tell my family or friends about these sort of things. Except one friend knows about the secret santa thing because I get discounts from him because he works at toys r us.  

_____________________________

My stiletto boots fit like gloves around his wrists.. as I locked them on I knew we were a match!

(in reply to slaveaurora)
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RE: "pay it forward" In spirit of the season - 11/28/2006 12:07:41 AM   
ownedgirlie


Posts: 9184
Joined: 2/5/2006
Status: offline 		There was actually a movie called Pay it Forward, with Kevin Spacey, Helen Hunt and Haley Joel Osment.  Great movie.  I recommend it if you haven't seen it.

http://payitforward.warnerbros.com/Pay_It_Forward/

I have done lots of pay it forwards over the years and it seems they all came back to me in my greatest time of need this past year. 

(in reply to slaveaurora)
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RE: "pay it forward" In spirit of the season - 11/28/2006 2:00:14 AM   
mistoferin


Posts: 8284
Joined: 10/27/2004
Status: offline 		*Re-posted from another "Pay it Forward" thread we had:
http://www.collarchat.com/m_511624/mpage_1/key_pay%2Cforward/tm.htm

I try to go out of my way and go the extra mile for people everyday of my life. Sometimes it is small...a friendly smile or a kind word...sometimes it's bigger.

I used to work in Substance Abuse counseling. The facility I worked in was in the inner city. We were one of the few places that would accept the indigent. I can't begin to tell you how many came through our doors. We were overwhelmed really. I tried to give all the best that I had to give but once you start doing it for awhile, although it's cold to say, you really concentrate your efforts on those you know really want help and have the best chance at success.

This past March I had to have major surgery. I was in a room with another woman who had been the victim of a robbery/assault. Over the course of that 10 or so days we became kind of close. My  room was always full of family and friends.....in all of the time that I was there she had no visitors. My heart went out to her.

On the third day after surgery I had a bit of a problem crop up. It seems that when they put the tube down my throat in surgery they scratched down the back of my throat. It wasn't really a problem...until they removed my morphine drip. Within an hour I began to cough...the kind of cough you get when you swallow something wrong....uncontrollable, can't breathe, tears streaming down your face kind of coughing. Well with an incision that started at my ribs and went to my groin I have to tell you that coughing was not a fun experience. These coughing fits would hit every few hours when the pain meds started to wear off for the next three days.

Each time one would start, the woman in the next bed would get out of her bed and come to my bedside. She would summon the nursing staff and take my hand and encourage me to hang in there and reassure me that help was coming.

On the day of her discharge I went to her and gave her a beautiful lighted glass box that I had in my room that she had been admiring. I told her that I wanted her to have it because she was so wonderful to me and she helped me so much. She was just thrilled. She went on to tell me that she was just paying me back for all I did for her. I told her she must be mistaken...I had been far too ill to have been helpful to anyone. It was then that she said that she recognized me as soon as they wheeled me in. I had been her counselor 15 or so years before. She said..."it is because of you that I have been clean and sober all these years. Everyone else had given up on me as a lost cause...but you believed in me. You saved my life". I was immediately reduced to tears. Most times you never know of your impact on the life of another....I feel so blessed for having the chance to know just this once.


_____________________________

Peace and light,
~erin~

There are no victims here...only volunteers.

When you make a habit of playing on the tracks, you thereby forfeit the right to bitch when you get hit by a train.

"I did it! I admit it and I'm gonna do it again!"

(in reply to slaveaurora)
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RE: "pay it forward" In spirit of the season - 11/28/2006 2:37:06 AM   
Quivver


Posts: 1953
Joined: 11/27/2004
Status: offline 		When you lack Cash, you can still pay for it with effort. 
At time's I will sneak over to a friends place and clean all her stalls like the barn fairy has shown up.
And years ago I was lucky enough to find a visit from a dish fairy!

_____________________________

The problem with communication ... is the illusion that it has been accomplished. ~George Bernard Shaw

(in reply to mistoferin)
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