The great kindness of strangers on social media

A MAYO WOMAN'S DIARY: BY BARBARA DALY

I JOINED a few free-cycling groups on Facebook this week for the first time as I had some furniture that I wanted to get rid of quickly.

It opened up a whole new world for me. What a great idea!

I have a total abhorrence of putting things in landfill just because we don’t need them/want them anymore and they cannot be sold.

Anyway now that I am a member of these groups, posts from other members pop up all the time in my newsfeed.

One that really stopped me in my scrolling was from the parent of a young family who have been living in B&Bs for quite some time and had recently been given what they described as their ‘forever home’ on one of the islands off the coast.

They now had to kit out their house with everything they could need and obviously they did not have the funds to do that.

So they were asking for donations of any household or personal items, even down to toys and books for their children, that people no longer needed.

Two things struck me about this story.

First was the fact that this was happening to a young family - that they had had to live in B&Bs and that they now had to ask for donations for everything they needed to create a home.

The second thing was the response to their plea.

There were 135 comments and as I scanned through them I felt the enormous goodness and kindness of ordinary people.

People were not only offering many of the items the family needed but they were also offering to drop the items to the ferry for them; they were offering the use of their cars.

One woman even said she had a spare room in her house which people in her town could drop items to and she would store them and then deliver them to the family (the family does not have a car).

On and on it went. The parent who had taken to social media was obviously overwhelmed by the response and expressed it wholeheartedly as they responded to the givers.

It was also heart-warming to read that they eventually decided they had enough and asked that people continue to offer donations so that others who were in a situation like theirs might benefit too.

Kindness breeds kindness there is no doubt.