Letter to Readers: In search of kindness

In this weird, frightening, Twilight Zone time of closures, layoffs and “social distancing,” people continue to perform extraordinary acts of kindness.

They offer to stand in mile-long grocery store lines to buy bread and milk for others. They drive neighbors to medical appointments. Sometimes they even offer someone a roll from their bunker full of toilet paper.

I’ve experienced their generosity. One friend brought me a bag of books, a reader’s lifeline. Another found some Bob’s Red Mill whole wheat flour, which I need since I bake my own bread.

Chuck Zickefoose, who lives in a duplex at Friendsview Senior Living Center in Newberg, regularly visits the main residential apartment building to read to his friend, Harriet. She’s 100 and can no longer see well.

He can’t visit now because her building is on lockdown over coronavirus concerns. So he and Harriet have started reading and discussing books over the phone, says Chuck’s sister-in-law, Kathy Beckwith.

It’s an example of “how to be wise and kind and cautious and deeply caring at the same time,” says Beckwith, of Dayton.

Do you know of other examples of kindness and caring? I’d like to share them.

The best way to reach me by email. Please provide contact information for the person you think is going above-and-beyond to help others. 

I’ll get in touch with them — or in “touch,” I mean, since these days I’m doing what I can by phone or internet.

STARLA POINTER
Education reporter and
Stopping By columnist
503-687-1263
spointer@newsregister.com