Good People Doing Good Things — Humanity

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Good people doing good things, Social commentary

Last week, I took a hiatus from my usual Wednesday ‘good people’ posts, but I’m back this week with an all-new batch of really good people doing more than their share to make life a little better for someone.

The doctor’s Christmas gift …

I’d like to introduce you to Dr. Omar T. Atiq.  Originally from Pakistan, after completing his fellowship at New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Dr. Atiq accepted a job offer in Arkansas.

Dr-Omar-AtiqIn 1991, Dr. Atiq founded the Arkansas Cancer Clinic in the community of Pine Bluff to make comprehensive cancer care available for the economically disadvantaged. Prior to its opening, Pine Bluff cancer patients traveled at least 50 miles for treatment. Dr. Atiq is clear that his patients’ needs were always his top concern—not their ability to pay.

“One principle I have always followed is, I am here to see patients. For somebody to trust their lives in my hands is the highest privilege and honor I can get. We never refused any patient for any reason.”

Earlier this year, Dr. Atiq and his wife were preparing to close the clinic, as he transitions to his new role as full-time professor of Head and Neck Surgery at the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute. They were closely reviewing the clinic’s financial state, and what they found was astounding … some of the patients had bills in the tens of thousands, and were making monthly payments of only $5 or $10.  He realized that many of the folks he’d treated didn’t have the means to pay—especially with so much added financial hardship brought on by the coronavirus pandemic

“They wanted to pay but they couldn’t.”

The total owed to Dr. Atiq by his patients was more than $650,000, and he and his wife decided to forgive his patients’ debts in time for the Christmas Holiday.  Each of his patients who owed him money received this card …

Dr-Omar-Atiq-card

“We are blessed that we didn’t need the money, so we decided to just cancel and forgo the debt—and we did.”

Dr. Atiq is, in my book, a very good people!

Anonymous Santa

The year 2020 will live forever in the history books, due to the pandemic that has killed nearly two million people around the world, and thus far has seen over 92 million cases.  Needless to say, the pandemic has caused financial hardship for many in every nation on the planet.  In the city of Edmonton, Canada, people woke on Christmas morning to a nice surprise …

secret-santa

A Santa who chooses to remain nameless left envelopes containing an inspirational rhyme along with $250 gift-cards on approximately 400 doorsteps, for a total of $100,000!  I do hope this Santa doesn’t have his heart set on a Poet Laureate award, however!

The only clue to the selfless Santa’s identity was an email address at the bottom of the notes. CBC News did reach out, but the cagey old elf preferred not reveal his or her identity. The anonymous do-gooder did, however, email the network to share his/her reason for the generous act:

“I decided to do it because I know that lots of people have had a really tough year and I had the means to help out. I hope the gifts gave people a sense that the world is good and there is a brighter future not far ahead.”

One good deed leads to another

Evelyn Topper and her granddaughter, Mikayla Gounard, had been to a local coffee shop in their hometown of San Rafael, California, and it wasn’t until they returned to Evelyn’s house that she realized she no longer had her wallet.  Needless to say, with credit cards and medical cards in the wallet, Ms. Topper was upset!  But …

The next day, a homeless man named Sean Curry phoned Evelyn and told her that he had found her wallet in a dumpster behind the coffee shop.  He made arrangements to bring her wallet to her, and Evelyn thanked him profusely.  Sean, however, didn’t think it was a big deal, saying he did it because he “has a heart”, and because “that’s the way I was brought up”.

Now, Evelyn’s granddaughter Mikayla had a birthday coming up, and she had planned a “socially distanced drive-by party”, whatever the heck that is!  She had asked invitees to donate to a charity in her name, rather than bring presents, though she had not yet decided on which charity.

On the day of her party, the newly-minted 12-year-old placed a photo of Curry and a collection basket next to balloons and party favors on an outdoor table in her driveway. By the end of her “Happy Birthday!” processional, she’d raised several hundred dollars.  The next day, Mikayla and her mom met Mr. Curry and gave him the money, explaining what Mikayla had done.  This was the result …

homeless-man

Says Mikayla …

“I think it’s really important that people who think that because you got pushed down you can never get back up again.”

An exec with a big heart

Ramu Dosapati lives in the Hyderabad region of India where in 2020, hardships brought on by heavy flooding and compounded by the added limitations of the pandemic lockdown left many migrant workers stranded without means of support.  Now, Mr. Dosapati is a corporate Human Resources executive, but that doesn’t stop him from doing what he can to to ensure the area’s struggling workers won’t go without food and other essential items.

Mr. Dosapati has spent ₹50 lakh of his own funds (close to $61,000) to establish and run a ‘Rice ATM’, doling out rice and other necessities 24 hours a day, seven days a week to those in need.

His first step along the road to altruism began simply enough, but he had no way of knowing then just how far his journey would take him, and the amount of good he would do along the way.  Dosapati had gone to the store to pick up the makings for his son’s birthday dinner. While at the shop, he noticed a woman buying an enormous quantity of chicken—close to $2,500 dollars’ worth, in fact. Intrigued, he couldn’t help but ask her purpose in buying so much poultry. As it turned out, the woman, a security guard who works at a camp for migrant workers, was buying it as a special treat for residents there who’d run out of food.

“When I asked her about her salary, she said it was ₹6,000. That made me think that if a lady with ₹6,000 salary can spend ₹2,000 on the needy, why can’t I do the same?”

Dosapati accompanied the security guard to the camp, where he made a list of close to 200 people in need of assistance. He quickly realized, however, the initial investment he’d allotted would only last a few days.  Undaunted, Dosapati cashed in his retirement fund, and working with a local merchant, opened the Rice ATM food pantry. But Dospati wasn’t finished.

Dospati-rice-atmWhile he’d been working toward moving his family into a larger home and had already sold a parcel of ancestral land to secure funding, when Dosapati learned yet another new group of workers had arrived seeking aid, with the blessings of his family, he put those dreams on hold.

“That’s when my wife supported me and asked me to go ahead and carry on with the initiative.”

Since the Rice ATM launched last April, word of Dosapati’s generosity has made the rounds. With support from a number of outside sources now pouring in, the man who has truly put the “human” in human resources says he hopes to keep resources flowing for those in need for a long time to come.

Dospati-rice-atm-2

Well, there you have it folks … lots of good people, young and old, from all walks of life, doing their bit for humanity.  We can all do just a bit to help someone else, if we only open our eyes and our hearts.

41 thoughts on “Good People Doing Good Things — Humanity”

      • oh right, how could I ever forget about jolly? Those posts are good too.

        How have you been doing?

        I’ve been working on new music as always and I’ve made quite a bit of money on bandcamp in the last month, more than I’ve expected.

        hugs. my friend.

        Liked by 1 person

        • I’ve been doing okay, my friend. I’ll be happy when this week is over, hopefully without any trauma, death, or violence, and then perhaps my blood pressure will go back to normal.

          I think your music is what keeps you sane, isn’t it? I’m thrilled to hear your music is bringing in some money! I know that isn’t why you do it, but still, it’s nice to have, and nice to know you’re efforts are appreciated!

          Hugs back to you, Scott! Take care and keep safe.

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    • Thanks, Keith! Yes, I was amazed by his act of compassion! My daughter, a registered nurse, works for a group of doctors that just sold out to a private equity firm, and the new policies are all about profit, and little about patient care. Each of the doctors who owned the practice received $1 million for their interest in it … they took the money and retired … to hell with the patients. Patients without insurance or cash in hand will no longer be seen. Such a 180° difference from Dr. Atiq!

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  6. A veritable collection of good people. A drive-by procession, quite common in Canada, is a line of cars, the people in them being socially-distanced from others in the next car, driving slowly by the house or group of houses being honoured. Greetings are shouted out the window, and hands wave wildly. Of course, horns are honked. Almost anything goes. Some drive-bys I have heard of, just coincidentally also in Edmonton, involved hundreds of cars including police and fire fighters. The first one I know of was organized to honour first responders and front line hospital workers, and the idea caught on. Food bank drive-bys are my favourite.
    Meanwhile, I have a confession to make. I have not been able to read many of your Good People posts of late. The world has been very depressing, and I know good people are out there, but I have this odd belief that if you are going to be depressed by things outside your own bubble, as they are now calling it, don’t try to lighten things up. Immerse yourself in your depression. Experience it as deeply as you can. Read all the saddest true stories you can find to read. Your posts interfered with that for me. I needed to know how bad people can be.
    I told you yesterday about the law in Humboldt County, California, that people are not allowed to sleep lying down on the ground overnight. Apparently there are many such laws–some that say you cannot sleep on the ground even in daytime–in American cities, though not everyone enforces them. That is not good enough for me. To puts such laws on the books of any jurisdiction is to tell homeless people they are not wanted. I heard on the news today, but I didn’t catch where, some big city is outlawing tent cities, because they don’t want homeless people to be seen to be accepted in their communities. TO BE SEEN TO BE ACCEPTED! I hope every one of those lawmakers become homeless due to Covid-19. They need to learn that life throws people curveballs, and those that have can become have-nots overnight. Then they will see what it is like to sleep sitting up or standing up. These are the stories someone should be writing about on Tuesdays and Thursdays in contrast to your Wednesdays.
    Your people are good, Jill, but bad people need to be called out on how bad they are. I would say start with Trump, but if you did, you would never get to the others, he does so many harmful things with his life. So skip Trump. There are more than enough bad people in this world that need to be exposed.
    Start with the unknown assailant in Vancouver, BC, Canada, who recently lit a sleeping homeless person on fire. Why? We will probably never know, probably just because he or she wanted to see someone burn. Fortunately the person woke up before she was injured, but that was luck. If she had been highly intoxicated–a well-known coping mechanism for homeless persons–she may have been dead today.
    What do perpetrators like this think they are doing? How can anyone be so cruel? This is the real world, Jill. We need the good people, yes, definitely. But we NEED MORE TO GET RID OF THE BAD PEOPLE! That is what can make humanity good…

    Liked by 4 people

    • First off, thanks for the explanation of drive-by parties! I was stymied.

      As for your philosophy about immersing oneself in depression … sorry, my friend, but most of us need balance. It’s hard enough to find that balance these days, with all that is wrong in the world, and especially here in the U.S., but if I didn’t seek out a bright spot here and there, I would have been dead by now.

      We cannot solve the problems of the world by reading sad stories, listening to sad songs. If we are to make a difference at all, it must be through activism, whether writing, marching, protesting … and in order to do any of those things, we must remain relatively in control of our thoughts and actions, which requires a bit of mental wellness. As you know, I call out the bad people in nearly every post I do, so you cannot accuse me of being a Pollyanna, but once a week, I and my readers step back and let ourselves be reminded that the bad people are NOT the only people in the world, that there ARE good people that give us hope for a brighter future. I need that in order to survive. If you don’t, then I’m not offended that you skip my ‘good people’ posts, but don’t try to lay a guilt trip on me for attempting to keep my sanity, okay? LuL

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      • No guilt trip intended, Jill. As stated on the Lightning Strikes post, all I am doing is speaking my truth. I am not suggesting this for anyone else, though I know others who have healed themselves by not fighting their feelings.
        You seem to be very defensive these days Jill. What’s up with that?
        I swear I am not trying to change you.

        Liked by 1 person

        • Hah … what’s funny about that is I told my daughter just the other night that you had been particularly critical of late, and I wondered if something was bothering you. Perhaps we’re just both under a lot of stress at the moment.

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          • I won’t call myself stressed, just running through a rabbit hole. I don’t immerse myself in sad stories to make myself more depressed, or stressed, but to learn from the experience. “That’s [my] lot in life, Lelania.” And I always learn something, it sometimes just rakes time to recover from the darkness. Rabbit holes are never well-lighted. In fact, they are not lighted at all, Bugs Bunny’s luxurious underground mansions notwithstanding.
            And, for your normal stresses, I love to give you something to laugh about, or at least a smile. After the stress of the other night, though, I had nothing funny for you at all. Anyone who can put humour into such a situation should not be allowed to call themselves human. There is no black humour in the murder if a man, ir woman.

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            • I’ve been in the rabbit hole far too much over the past year, and it’s caused some mental/physical issues, so I have to try hard to stay out of the rabbit holes. I still think (yes, I’m delusional) that I can make some small difference in this world, but not if I’m dead. Plus, the girls still need me, so i try to stay around, though there have been more than a few nights that I’ve gone to bed hoping not to waken in the morning. Thank you for caring, and for the many times you’ve made me either laugh or think … both have value. Hugs to you and Gail.

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              • And hugs back to you and yours.
                I understand how much you sacrifice, Jill, but even sometimes I get so involved in what I am doing, saying, or writing, that I start losing focus on my original intent. I grew up wanting to change the world, I will not deny that. But time, and experience have taught me two things: most of the world does not want to change; and I cannot force anyone to change, nor do I want to. Pemanent change happens from within.

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                • It is easy to do. I took a break today (Saturday) because I was so stressed, so angry, that I was losing the ability to focus, to determine what is relevant as opposed to detritus. Perhaps most of the world does not want to change, but if they don’t, then they will bring about the extinction of many life forms, including their own, by the end of the century. I’m not so sure that wouldn’t be for the best, actually.

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                  • For the present state of the world population it would be best, but that would prevent future generations from improving the future of life. Another Catch-22, and there are a lot of those to be found in human interactions.

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    • I’m so glad! I like nice people, too. Rawgod suggests that I’m somehow doing a disservice with my ‘good people’ posts, but I think they show us that the whole world isn’t corrupt, greedy and violent, and these good people give us hope for a brighter future. Keep that smile on your face!
      Cwtch

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