My Act of Kindness

By Makoa Namoca, 7th Grade
Damien Memorial School
Teacher: Gayle Pai

Did you ever just want to do an act of kindness, even if it was as simple as opening a door for someone? Well, my family and I wanted to do a random act of kindness. We volunteered to feed families at a homeless shelter about five years ago.

We wanted to participate in a worthy cause and Hawaiian Airlines happened to be hosting an event where we had the opportunity to volunteer at the shelter. We donated and fed all the people there, in fact, we actually had left over food. Let's first look at the preparation from the day before the event, setting up at the shelter, and culminating with the clean up.

It began when my mom got an email from work. It asked if she would like to volunteer and help at a homeless shelter. My family discussed things and we thought this would be a worthy cause to be involved with. Then the preparation from the day before the event began. We volunteered to contribute fried rice, eggs, and some drinks. We organized it so people brought tables and chairs. We needed many tables to place all the other food - vienna sausage, Longanisa, rice, fried noodles, toast, manapua, and pork hash. Snacks and books were also gathered so the homeless also had some form of entertainment during the day since they had nothing else to do. We had hoped that all the food would be enough to fill them for at least an entire day.

We got to the shelter at 5 a.m. and started setting up. We began setting up tables and chairs very quietly. The entire warehouse was almost filled. Around half of the people who worked at Hawaiian Airlines showed up with lots of food. We started by putting out placemats, forks and napkins. We waited for three hours for all of the people to wake up. We had all of the food lined up neatly and ready to be served in a buffet style. The people came up and we assisted them in getting their food. Believe it or not we actually filled up all of the tables and chairs. We fed so many people that someone had to drive to the store for more gatorade. We were fine for a few hours, then we were slowly running out of food, we were glad to be almost done.

After the meal, our job still was not done though, we had to clean up. We began culminating with the clean up by picking up trash off the floor, throwing them away, and putting away the tables and chairs. This took us quite a while, we also received help from the warehouse staff. We brought a lot of extra food so whatever was left was given to the staff. Because there was a reading area for the adults and children, we gave them more books. Although this was a community service coming out of the kindness of people, it was really enjoyable for my entire family. It was a great feeling knowing that we did something positive for others.

Clarence T.C. Ching's acts of charity to improve his community inspired me to get involved with my mom's community service at the homeless shelter, something I would not have otherwise done. This was a great time and my family really enjoyed it. I talked about the preparation before the day of the event, setting up at the shelter, and finally culminating with the clean up. Clarence T.C. Ching inspired me to do these things because he did many acts of kindness in different ways. He set an example on how I can perform simple acts that would brighten up the day for other people. It should then make others want to do acts of kindness on their own to continue the chain of good deeds for the community.