20 Photos of Kindness and the Stories Behind Them

These twenty photographs show ordinary people choosing to help when nobody required them to: children returning a lost skateboard, a family leaving a tip in memory of their son, strangers lifting a burning car off an injured rider. Most of the pictures circulated online in 2012 and 2013, passed from site to site with a one-line caption and no name attached. Where the story behind a photo is documented, it is told below; where it is not, the caption says so plainly instead of inventing details.

Why do pictures like these hit so hard? Psychologists have a name for the warm, slightly tearful feeling of watching someone act with unexpected goodness: “moral elevation”, a term popularised by the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. Studies of elevation suggest it does more than make us feel good for a moment. People who have just witnessed kindness report a stronger wish to help others themselves, which may be why these images keep being shared.

The photos are grouped by the kind of kindness they show: honesty, everyday help, kindness in war and crisis, care for people living on the street, and moments that changed someone’s day.

Honesty and small gestures

1. A note for the owner of a lost skateboard

Someone found a new skateboard left behind in a car park and, instead of keeping it, taped a cardboard sign to a nearby tree asking the owner to call. The handwritten phone number begins with 805, the area code for California’s Central Coast, which is the only real clue to where it was taken. The original post said the finders were kids; that cannot be confirmed, but the gesture speaks for itself.

2. A $50 tip in memory of a son

On a restaurant bill of $32.32, a family added a $50 tip and wrote: “A random act of love in memory of our son, Joel.” The note goes on to say that he brightened everyone’s day and that they hoped this would brighten the server’s. Grieving families sometimes mark an anniversary or birthday this way, turning a painful date into a small gift for a stranger.

3. Help with heavy bags on the stairs

In a busy station underpass, a man stops to lift a shopping bag for an elderly woman as she reaches the stairs, while commuters stream past and a small dog waits at his feet. The location and the people are not identified. It is the most ordinary moment in this collection, and that is the point: carrying a bag up a flight of steps costs a minute and can make a real difference to someone with limited strength.

4. A cyclist shares his water with a koala

A koala sits on the edge of a road while a cyclist crouches beside it with his bottle and another rider watches. Photos like this one spread during Australian summer heatwaves, when koalas are sometimes seen coming down from trees in search of water. Wildlife groups advise that a thirsty koala can be offered water this way, slowly, but that a koala in visible distress should be reported to a local wildlife rescue rather than handled.

Kindness in a crisis

5. Sharing electricity after a storm

A handwritten sign reads “You can charge your phone”, and a tangle of power strips and cables is spread across a box outside a building, with people crowding round to plug in. Pictures like this came out of New York after Hurricane Sandy made landfall on 29 October 2012 and left millions of customers in New York and New Jersey without power. For many people a charged phone was the only way to tell family they were safe.

6. Free cleaning for job interviews

The sign in the window of this dry cleaner offers to clean an outfit for free if you are unemployed and need it for an interview. Offers like this appeared at several cleaners in the United States in the years after the 2008 financial crisis, when long-term unemployment was high. It is a smart kind of help: it removes one practical barrier at the exact moment it matters most.

7. A soldier and a kitten in the trench

A soldier in a sandbagged position cradles a tiny kitten and seems to be feeding it, with his helmet resting beside him. The image is widely shared as a wartime photograph, but its date, place and photographer are not reliably documented, so treat any specific caption you see online with caution. Soldiers adopting stray animals is, however, a well-recorded habit in many wars; animals offered comfort in places with very little of it.

8. Sailors salute a veteran who lost his legs

Four young men in naval uniform stand to attention and salute an elderly man wearing rows of medals, who moves along the embankment on a low wheeled platform because he has lost both legs. The setting appears to be a river embankment in St Petersburg, and the medals suggest a Second World War veteran, perhaps on Victory Day, though the photographer and date are unconfirmed. The picture works because the gesture is formal and public: respect shown by one generation to another.

Help that comes at a cost

9. A runner who stopped to help her rival finish

This moment is one of the best documented in the collection. It is widely reported that at the 2012 Ohio state high school track meet, Meghan Vogel of West Liberty-Salem, who had already won the 1,600 metres, stopped in the 3,200 metres to help Arden McMath, a runner from another school who had collapsed near the end. Vogel helped her down the final stretch and made sure McMath crossed the line first, accepting last place herself.

10. A hot drink on a cold street

On a wintry pavement, a passer-by bends down to hand a paper cup to a man sitting wrapped up against a wall. Nobody in the photograph is identified. A warm drink will not change someone’s life, but in freezing weather it helps, and outreach workers often say the eye contact and a few words matter as much as the drink itself.

11. Tea offered across a front line

An older man in a woollen hat and shawl, sitting in the dust, holds out a small glass of tea to a soldier lying prone with his rifle. The scene appears to be Afghanistan during the war that followed 2001, and offering tea to a visitor is a deep custom of hospitality there. The original caption had it backwards in a way: the soldier was far from home, and it was the civilian who was on his own soil, sharing what he had in the middle of a conflict.

12. A boy hands over a sandwich

A boy in a striped scarf and red gloves gives a wrapped sandwich to a man sheltering under a blue tarpaulin on a city street. The source of the photo is unknown, and an adult appears to be nearby with a camera, so it may have been a planned family act of giving. Even so, it reflects something research has found again and again: children are naturally inclined to help, and they learn generosity by doing it.

Strangers who stepped in

13. A shopkeeper serves food on the pavement

Beside a busy road, a young man in a red T-shirt crouches to set down a tray of food in front of a man with a disability who is sitting on the ground. The setting looks like a city in South Asia, though the exact place is not recorded. Sharing food with people in need is a strong tradition across the region, often tied to religious practice, and small shops are frequently the ones who do it.

14. Bystanders lift a burning car off a motorcyclist

This is widely reported to have happened in Logan, Utah, in September 2013, when a motorcyclist was trapped beneath a car after a collision and the motorbike caught fire. Construction workers, students and other passers-by ran in, lifted the car together and dragged him clear, and a video of the rescue was watched millions of times. It is a striking example of how quickly a crowd can act once one or two people move first.

15. Queuing to give blood

The text on this image says it shows people waiting to donate blood after a large explosion in Beirut, Lebanon; the photograph predates the 2020 port explosion, so it most likely relates to one of the bombings in the city in 2013. After a mass-casualty event, hospitals often see far more volunteers than they can process on the day. The best long-term help is regular donation, because blood has a limited shelf life and supplies are needed all year.

16. Stopping traffic for an older pedestrian

A motorcyclist has parked, stepped into the road at a pedestrian crossing and raised his arm to hold back traffic while an elderly man with a walking stick crosses the wet street. The place and people are not identified. Crossings are among the riskiest places for older pedestrians, who walk more slowly than signal timings often assume, so a few seconds of patience genuinely protects them.

Dignity for people living on the street

17. Feeding a man who has lost his arms

A tattooed man squats on the pavement and feeds noodles with chopsticks to a man whose arms end above the wrists. The photo is usually said to have been taken in Asia, but it has no confirmed source. What stands out is the choice of help: he did not just leave food, he made sure the man could actually eat it, and he did it at eye level.

18. An umbrella in the rain

This sequence of shots, apparently taken in China, shows a young woman under a purple umbrella noticing a man with a disability on a low wheeled board in heavy rain, then walking beside him and holding the umbrella over him while she gets wet herself. The people are not named. It is a quiet example of noticing: most of the people in the background are simply hurrying to get out of the rain.

Moments that made someone’s day

19. A rugby hero brings the trophy to hospital

Irish rugby great Brian O’Driscoll, carrying the Heineken Cup, visits a young girl in a hospital ward, and her reaction says everything. O’Driscoll won the European trophy with Leinster in 2009, 2011 and 2012, and sports teams commonly take silverware to children’s hospitals after a victory. The child’s name and the exact date are not given in the original image, so they are not guessed here.

20. A wheelchair user crowd-surfs at a concert

A young man in a wheelchair is lifted above a packed concert crowd, one fist raised, as the people beneath hold him and his chair steady. The concert and the fan are not identified. Crowd-surfing in a wheelchair carries real risk, and many venues now discourage it, but this image captures what fans wanted to give him: the same experience as everyone else in the room, carried by hundreds of strangers.

Why kindness spreads

None of these acts needed money, training or a plan. They needed someone to notice a person in difficulty and decide that it was their business. Research on helping behaviour has long found that people are more likely to step in when someone else already has, which is why the first person to move, the one who lifts the car or holds out the cup, matters so much.

If you want to turn the feeling these photos give you into something practical, start small and local: give blood regularly, carry a spare drink or snack in winter, offer help with bags or a door, and when you see someone helping, join in. Kindness is easier to start than most of us think, and it tends to travel.

Many of these photos were collected and shared by the site TruthSeekerDaily; the original photographers are, in most cases, unknown.

Sources: collection originally shared by TruthSeekerDaily; Wikipedia: Hurricane Sandy; Wikipedia: Brian O’Driscoll.

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