Some photographs inspire not because of what they show, but because of what the people in them chose to do. A runner gives up her place to help a rival. A police officer spends his own money on boots for a stranger. A university president cuts his own pay so the lowest-paid staff earn more. None of these acts needed special talent, only a moment of decency and the willingness to act on it.
This collection brings together 25 such moments, most of them photographed between 2005 and 2014 and shared widely online. For each one we explain who is pictured where that is known, what happened, and why it mattered. Viral captions are not always accurate, so we have checked the stories against reliable reporting and corrected the details where needed; where a story could not be confirmed, we say so. Photographers and original sources are credited under each picture.
The images fall into a few natural groups: everyday kindness between strangers, generosity in sport, love and loss, people standing up for others, and gestures of peace in difficult places. If you are looking for ideas for your own small acts of kindness, many of these are a good place to start.
Kindness between strangers
Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, 2005. Five-year-old Tanisha Blevin holds the hand of 105-year-old Nita LaGarde as both are evacuated from the city's convention center, where thousands of people waited for days for help after the storm. The century between them makes the gesture unforgettable. It became one of the defining images of the disaster.
New York City, November 2012. NYPD officer Lawrence DePrimo noticed a barefoot homeless man in Times Square on a cold night and bought him a pair of boots with his own money. A tourist, Jennifer Foster, took the photo, and it went viral after the NYPD shared it. DePrimo later said he had not expected anyone to notice.
Photo via facebook
After Hurricane Sandy, 2012. When Sandy struck the US East Coast in late October 2012, many people lost power, homes and access to their usual doctors. This photo shows a doctor offering free medical help to people affected by the storm. Volunteers like him filled gaps in the days before regular services returned.
Photo via shortformblog
North Carolina State University, 2013. Two NC State football players noticed a student eating lunch by himself and sat down to join him. The moment was photographed and shared online in November 2013. It is a reminder of how much a small gesture of inclusion can mean to someone who feels alone.
Photo via carolinaplotthound
An airport terminal. Two toddlers who had never met before spot each other and simply hug. The photo was shared on Reddit and quickly spread. Small children have not yet learned to be wary of strangers, and their easy affection is part of why the picture makes people smile.
Photo via reddit
A bike given away. According to the Reddit post that accompanied this image, a man won a bicycle at the State Fair of Texas and gave it to a young boy on the spot. The boy's delight says the rest. The details come only from the original post, but the act itself needs no explanation.
Photo via reddit
Generosity in sport and giving
Ohio state track meet, June 2012. In the girls' 3,200-metre final, Arden McMath of Arlington High School collapsed close to the finish. Meghan Vogel of West Liberty-Salem, who had won the 1,600 metres earlier that day, stopped, lifted her up and helped her over the line, making sure McMath crossed ahead of her. Neither girl won the race, but Vogel won national praise for sportsmanship.
Photo: Mike Ullery/ Piqua Daily Call / AP Photo; story via Daily Mail
Brian O'Driscoll with young fans. The Irish rugby great, one of the most capped players in the sport's history, is shown sharing a victory with children in a hospital. Visits like this are a familiar tradition in Irish sport, and players often bring trophies to show young patients who could not be at the match.
Photo via imgur; story via Eurosport
World Cup tickets for a young fan. According to the Reddit post that shared this photo, a man had two spare tickets for the Spain–Netherlands match at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Rather than sell them at the high prices they could fetch, he gave them to an excited boy. That match, a 5–1 win for the Netherlands, turned out to be one of the most memorable of the tournament.
Photo via redd.it
James Harrison, "the man with the golden arm". The Australian donor gave blood and plasma 1,173 times between 1954 and 2018. His plasma contained rare, powerful anti-D antibodies used to protect unborn babies from Rh disease, which happens when a mother's immune system attacks her baby's blood cells. News reports credited his donations with helping more than two million babies. He died in February 2025 at the age of 88.
Photo via growingyourbaby
Kentucky State University, 2014. Interim president Raymond Burse gave up $90,000 of his salary, roughly a quarter of it, so that 24 of the university's lowest-paid workers could have their pay raised from $7.25 to $10.25 an hour. The gesture drew national attention to the gap between top and bottom salaries on many campuses.
Photo via kentucky; story via Lexington Herald-Leader
A free school in New Delhi. Two volunteer teachers give lessons to children from poor families in India's capital, who might otherwise have no schooling at all. One well-known example of this kind of project is the open-air school that shopkeeper Rajesh Kumar Sharma started under a Delhi Metro bridge. Efforts like these rely on volunteers' time rather than money.
Photo: AP Photo / Altaf Qadri
Love, loss and family
Janine's story. Fifty-two days before her wedding, a bride named Janine lost her fiancé, John. Instead of cancelling everything, she worked with Del Sol Photography on a photo shoot in her wedding dress to honour him and the life they had planned. The pictures became a widely shared tribute to grief and hope.
Photo: delsolphotography; story via A Plus
Dear Photograph. A widower holds up an old photo of himself and his late wife in the very spot where it was taken years earlier. The image comes from Dear Photograph, a project in which people line up a past picture with the present scene and write a short note to it. The overlap of then and now makes the loss, and the love, easy to feel.
Photo via dearphotograph
A wedding watched over Skype. A terminally ill mother who was too sick to travel watches her daughter marry through a video call. Before video calling became common, she would probably have missed the day entirely. It is a moving example of technology bringing a family together at the most important moment.
Photo: Andrea Boettcher
Talia Castellano meets Ellen DeGeneres, 2012. Talia, a teenager from Florida, became famous for her cheerful YouTube makeup tutorials while being treated for neuroblastoma and later a form of leukaemia. In September 2012 she appeared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show and was named CoverGirl's first honorary cover girl. She died in July 2013, aged 13, and is remembered for her courage and humour.
Photo via sodahead; story via NBC Latino
The Vancouver kiss, June 2011. During the riot that followed the Vancouver Canucks' Stanley Cup final defeat, photographer Richard Lam captured Scott Jones, from Perth in Australia, kissing his girlfriend Alexandra Thomas as she lay in the street. Many people assumed the scene was staged, but the couple explained that riot police shields had knocked her down and he was comforting her. Video later supported their account.
Photo via today
Standing up for others
Howard University, August 2014. Students at the historically Black university in Washington, D.C. raised their hands in a group photo after 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot and killed by police officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri, on 9 August 2014. "Hands up, don't shoot" became a protest slogan across the country. A US Justice Department investigation in March 2015 found that witness accounts of Brown raising his hands in surrender were not supported by the physical and forensic evidence; the protests nonetheless started a national debate about policing that continues today.
Photo via twitter
Skirts for a classmate, Rio de Janeiro, 2014. When officials at the Colégio Pedro II penalised Maria Muniz, a transgender student, for wearing a skirt, her classmates organised a protest in which boys and girls alike came to school in skirts. Supporters used the hashtag #VouDeSaia ("I'm going in a skirt"). The decision against her was reportedly overturned, and the school said it would review its dress code.
Photo and story via advocate
Wedding cake in Wisconsin, June 2014. After a federal judge struck down Wisconsin's ban on same-sex marriage, couples rushed to courthouses to marry before the ruling could be put on hold. Local police officers brought cake to celebrate with the newlyweds. It was a small gesture with a big message from people who are sworn to serve everyone.
Photo via twitter; story via HuffPost
Richmond, Virginia, 6 October 2014. Nicole Pries and Lindsey Oliver became the first same-sex couple to receive a marriage licence in the city of Richmond, on the day same-sex marriage became legal in Virginia. They married outside the John Marshall Courthouse on their anniversary. Earlier captions described them as the first couple in all of Virginia; reports at the time say first in Richmond.
Photo via twitter
A wedding photo from ground zero. Elizabeth Stringer Keefe, an assistant professor at Lesley University near Boston, had kept a wedding photo recovered after the 11 September 2001 attacks in New York. In September 2014 she shared it online once more, and it was retweeted tens of thousands of times. Within days one of the six people pictured, Fred Mahe, got in touch, and she learned that everyone in the photo was alive and well.
Photo via twitter
Peace and service
Benghazi, Libya, September 2012. On 11 and 12 September 2012, militants attacked the US diplomatic compound and a nearby CIA annex in Benghazi, killing Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. The next day, Libyans gathered in Benghazi and Tripoli holding signs condemning the violence, praising Stevens as a friend of Libya and apologising to Americans. Days later, around 30,000 people marched against armed militias.
Photo via huffingtonpost
A high five in Afghanistan. A US Army soldier slaps hands with a young Afghan boy, captured by Reuters photographer Umit Bektas. Moments like this were a small human counterpoint to a long and costly war. They also reflect how much children in conflict zones respond to simple warmth.
Photo: Umit Bektas / Reuters
Service members at Pride. After the US repealed its "Don't ask, don't tell" policy in September 2011, gay and lesbian service members could serve openly. This photo by Sandy Huffaker shows service members marching in a Pride parade, which was widely reported as the first time the Pentagon allowed troops to take part in uniform, at San Diego Pride in 2012. For many in the parade, it was the first time they could be themselves in public without risking their careers.
Photo: Getty Images / Sandy Huffaker
Why these moments stay with us
Psychologists have a name for the warm, uplifted feeling these pictures give: "moral elevation", the emotion we feel when we see someone act with unexpected goodness. Research by Jonathan Haidt and others suggests it can make people more likely to help others themselves. That may be the real value of a collection like this.
Most of the people pictured here were not famous. They were a runner, a police officer, a group of classmates, a stranger with spare tickets. What they share is that they noticed someone else's need and acted quickly, often at a cost to themselves. That is something anyone can try today, whether by sitting with someone who is alone, sharing what you do not need, or speaking up when someone is treated unfairly.
Sources: photographers and outlets credited under each image; collection originally shared by A Plus; James Harrison (Wikipedia); Talia Castellano (Wikipedia); Raymond M. Burse (Wikipedia); Killing of Michael Brown (Wikipedia); 2011 Vancouver Stanley Cup riot (Wikipedia); 2012 Benghazi attack (Wikipedia); NBC12: Richmond's first same-sex couple marries; The Daily Star: ground zero photo owner found.
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