Kindness Facts

Paul Walker was browsing a Santa Barbara jewelry store when he overheard a young couple - a veteran just back from Iraq and his fiancée - admiring an engagement ring they could not afford. Walker walked up to the manager and said put it on his tab. The price was nearly $10,000. He insisted on complete anonymity and the couple did not learn who paid for it for almost a decade. The truth only came out after he died.

Acts of kindness make us happier and healthier.

In 2007, a customer kindly gave a $10,000 tip to a Pizza Hut waitress after hearing she had financial troubles which had forced her to drop out of college.

In 2011, an elderly woman from Memphis who ordered pizza everyday for 3 years straight was saved by a delivery woman when she failed to place an order for 3 days.

Carlos Vasquez, a dry cleaner in New York, has a sign outside his shop that reads: If you are unemployed and need an outfit clean for an interview, we will clean it for free.

Patrick Moriarty was 22 when he told his 9th-grade earth science students to circle one date on their worksheets: a solar eclipse. He gave the same assignment to every class he taught for the next 16 years. More than 100 former students showed up 46 years later. Rochester was cloudy. Nobody cared.

While filming Matilda, Mara Wilson's mother was dying of cancer. Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman quietly cared for Mara like their own daughter. DeVito secretly took an unfinished cut of the film to the hospital and screened it for her dying mother. He kept it quiet for years.

Kristina Ulmer's sister died hours after her final waitress shift, leaving $80 in tips behind. Kristina kept it untouched for four years, then added her own savings, broke it into $20 bills, and handed one to each of her 26 students: use it for kindness. It is now a nonprofit, 350+ acts strong.

George Michael spent decades secretly giving away millions - and almost nobody knew until he died in 2016. He paid a stranger's £15,000 IVF bill after seeing her cry on Deal or No Deal, and donated £100,000 every Easter to charity via anonymous phone-ins. The woman he helped named her son Seth George in his honour.

Muhammad Ali got a call: Joe was on a 9th-floor fire escape in Los Angeles. He would not come down. Police, a psychologist, and a chaplain had all tried and failed. Ali drove over, leaned out a window, and said: "You're my brother. I love you and I couldn't lie to you." Twenty minutes later he had his arm around Joe and walked him inside. Ali drove him to the hospital himself.

Jack White's mother couldn't find work, so Detroit's Masonic Temple hired her as an usher. Years later, the massive concert hall she once worked in faced foreclosure over unpaid taxes. White quietly paid off the entire debt himself, telling no one. The Temple's president later revealed who had saved it, renaming the theater in his honor. It still carries his name today.

A four-year-old girl in Seattle started feeding crows. They started leaving her presents: earrings, buttons, LEGO pieces, a rusty screw she labeled "Third Favorite." Then her mom dropped a camera lens cap in an alley blocks away. The crows dove into the water, fished it out, and left it on the birdbath. The bird-cam caught the whole thing.

Eight-year-old Olivia Heid and her 4-year-old brother RJ sled off a ridge and vanish into a frozen New Jersey pond. Kieran Foley, 14, loses a boot in the mud and keeps going barefoot. His four friends link arms behind him on the ice. One by one, he hands both kids down the chain to shore.

Harold Jellicoe Percival died alone at 99 with no family to attend his funeral. The care home placed a four-line notice in the Lytham St Annes Express asking anyone to come. Someone tweeted a photo of it. On Armistice Day at 11am, over 200 strangers packed the crematorium and scores more stood outside in the rain.

A Florida mom posted on Facebook asking if anyone with a cool car could drive past for her son Kosta's 4th birthday. She expected maybe one or two cars. Ten supercars showed up - Porsches, Audi R8s, Mercedes-AMG GTs, and BMW M4s - escorted by the Winter Springs Police Department. Kosta got to sit in every single one.

A homeless man in Kansas City named Billy Ray Harris found a $4,000 diamond engagement ring in his panhandling cup in 2013 - accidentally dropped there by a woman named Sarah Darling. He kept it safe and returned it. Her husband launched a fundraiser that raised over $190,000, and the TV coverage reunited Harris with his sister, who hadn't seen him in 16 years.

Ajay Haridasse collapsed 1,000 feet from the Boston Marathon finish line with severe cramps. Two strangers - Aaron Beggs of Northern Ireland and Robson De Oliveira of Brazil - stopped their own races, slid under his arms, and walked him across. The man they carried finished in 2:44:32. Beggs crossed 4 seconds later.