Even the smallest acts of kindness can have a huge impact on another person’s day, and this delivery driver who experienced it firsthand from one of his customers will prove to you how true that is.
For the past four or five years, Kathy Ouma has maintained a holiday tradition of giving. During this busy season, Kathy puts out refreshments and snacks at her front door for the delivery drivers who drop off her packages.
One day, Karim Reed III, who’s been an Amazon driver for three months, was assigned to drop off a package for Kathy. He drove over to her Middletown, Delaware, home and pulled up his truck once he got to her address.
As per usual, he walked up the driveway with the package under his arm to leave it at the front door. But what he thought would be a normal delivery assignment turned out to be something that would bring him exactly what he needed that day.
As he placed the box on one of the chairs on the porch, the one on the other side caught his eye – sitting there was a basket with bottles of water, softdrinks in can, Oreos, and crackers. The delivery driver was elated upon reading the message that came with it!
The basket bore a sign: “Please take some goodies to enjoy on your route. Thanks for making holiday shopping easy.”
“Oh, this is nice!” he exclaimed. “They got some goodies. Wow.”
“Get out of here!” Karim said as he was choosing what to take from the goodies basket. “This is sweet. This is so nice.”
Kathy’s home had a doorbell camera, and it captured a front-row view of Karim doing a happy dance as he walked back to his truck.
In a way neither could have anticipated, Karim and Kathy were able to give each other exactly what they needed that particular day.
Kathy said that she was inside her home recovering from a recent car accident when Karim came to deliver her package. Hearing him enjoy the refreshments and snacks that she put out in her porch just filled her with happiness.
“I heard his infectious energy outside,” she said. “He really did make my day. I thought, ‘I am all better.’”
Karim, meanwhile, had forgotten to bring his lunch with him that day. He started feeling a little famished as the day progressed, so he was naturally ecstatic upon seeing the goodies on Kathy’s porch.
He grabbed a bag of cookies, some crackers, and a bottle of water before he danced back to his truck. Karim told CNN that those moves have been his “signature dance” since he was 7 years old.
“That held me over for the rest of the day,” he said.
“If I had known, I’d have left him lunch too,” Kathy told CNN.
Since Karim’s joyous dance moves had gone viral, Kathy has been receiving messages from people in Amsterdam, London, and Australia who followed her example and put out refreshments and snacks for their delivery drivers.
“I was just raised this way,” she said. “You can shift the energy not just of the people around you, but the entire world.”
Watch the video below to see Karim dancing his way back to his truck. It’s amazing what a simple act of kindness can do! We never know how much we are helping someone, so let us choose to spread love and kindness whenever we can.