“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”—Aesop
This police officer was just too kind to notice the help that this elderly needs at the moment.
Seth Kazz was working at the gas stationed owned by his family for about 20 years at Michigan. An old woman, Delores Marotta, came in her old gray car having only $3 to pump some gasoline. Like most elderly, Delores relies on Social Security which doesn’t really stretch for everything that she needs.
Officer Todd Bing, a 17-year veteran of the St. Clair Shores Michigan Police Department, happened to also be at the gas station at the moment. He was standing in the line and was caught by the elderly’s situation. He noticed that she was using a cane, struggling to walk back to her car. This police officer saw that this old woman was struggling and he knew that he was capable of doing something. And so he did.
This police officer decided to lend this elderly a helping hand.“She was so slow-moving that I was like ‘I’m going to go pump this gas for her,’” Officer Todd explained. “He told her to hang tight- came inside and put her another $20 out of his pocket,” Seth Kazz wrote in Love What Matters.
After a few minutes talking with each other, the police officer was able to get to know the old woman and he realized she was really struggling and financially challenged at the moment. As they were talking, Delores noticed that Todd was putting more than a $3 worth of gasoline into her tank. “It seemed like he was putting in a lot of gas because I only told him $3,” Delores said.
This police officer spared from his own wallet $20 for this old woman’s gasoline. It may seem a little amount for some, but for the old woman, it meant so much.
“He went back and finished pumping and she told him her husband had recently passed away and she’s stuck paying all their bills and is behind every month. This $20 really helped her! She would have most likely ended up running out of gas.”
Sometimes we felt like the help that we can offer is not that much, so we end up deciding not to. But I hope that the story of this police officer and this old woman remind us once again that even a small act of kindness can create a big impact not just in this world, but most especially in the world of those who received that kindness.
Seth Kazz who happened to see everything that the police officer did was inspired. He posted the story online because he believes that the world needs to know about this and he wants to show everyone that not everything that we can hear about the police is all negative. There are still those who remain kind and sensitive to the needs of others. There are still those who do things beyond their sworn duties. So shout out to all the kind-hearted yet brave police officers out there!