Kind Things That We Can Do in the Community

By Nathan Esona, 8th Grade
Damien Memorial School
Teacher: Gayle Pai

Has someone in your community ever done something kind or nice for you? Did you know that Clarence T.C. Ching fully funded the Kukui Gardens by providing affordable housing for the low-income families in his community? The money that the Kukui Gardens collects goes straight to his non-profit foundation called the Clarence T.C. Ching Foundation. This essay is a reminder to people to be kind to one another, like how Clarence T.C. Ching was to O'ahu's communities. Learning about him inspired me to do one of the acts of kindness that I will be talking about. I'd like to share one kind thing that happened to me, then I played it forward and did a good deed for someone else, and lastly, I witnessed my aunty perform a truly genuine act of kindness.

I'd like to share one kind thing that happened to me. When you were in the McDonalds drive thru did someone ever pay for your food? Well, someone did that for us. One day when my mom and I were in the drive-thru, we ordered our food and went up to the payment window. We found out that the car in front of us had already paid for our meal! Our reaction was one of total surprise. We never had something like this happen to us before. We have been meaning to pay for the food of people behind us before, so this was the chance we finally had. I hope that person behind us carried it on by paying for someone else. This random act of kindness showed the generosity of a person who did not even know us.

Once, I played it forward and did a good deed for someone else. I was inspired to do an act of kindness for someone as well. We were walking back to the car to load up our goods. We were in the car about to leave when we saw a black square thing on the road in the parking lot, it was eight o'clock at night. My dad told me to get out of the car and get what was on the road. It was a wallet! There were people around the area so I asked them if it was theirs. It didn't belong to anyone so I opened it and saw a nearby address. I asked my dad if we could go to the address since it was near and he agreed. I knocked on the door. When the owner of the wallet answered the door, he was so happy and relieved to get his wallet back. He was so appreciative of this act of kindness because I could have just left the wallet there, or I could have stolen the money that was in it, but instead I wanted to give it back to the person. There was never a question of what needed to be done.

I witnessed my aunty perform a truly genuine act of kindness as well. When people were receiving their stimulus checks, my Aunty received hers too. Instead of spending this extra money, she decided to give hers to a non-profit foundation on the east side of Oahu. It was something she wanted to do for others instead of thinking of herself because there were so many people having a real difficult time. Like Clarence T.C. Ching, she thought of others and she tried to better an east side community.

Mr. Ching made a lot of sacrifices and donated many things in order to give back to the community. One huge example was Kukui Gardens. Everything that is collected, goes straight to his non-profit foundation. He is a prime example of how we should be giving to others. This essay covered one kind thing that happened to me, how I played it forward and did a good deed for someone else, and lastly, I witnessed my aunty perform a truly genuine act of kindness. Have you been encouraged or inspired to pull off at least one act of kindness for the community just like how Clarence T.C. Ching did for his? The world would be a better, kinder place if people thought of doing one small daily act of kindness.