Originally published 2015-11-20.
Most of the photographs in this collection come from a single year, 2012, when a handful of quiet kind acts were caught on camera and shared millions of times. Some are tiny: a note on a car, an umbrella held over a stranger. Others took a whole community: hundreds of students forming a wall, or hospital staff carrying fuel up thirteen flights of stairs during a hurricane.
What makes these pictures last is not that they are dramatic. It is that they are ordinary. Nobody in them has special powers or unusual wealth. They show people noticing what someone else needed and doing something about it, often without expecting anyone to see.
We have grouped the photos by the kind of help they show, added what is known about each one, and pointed out where details could not be confirmed. Viral images often lose their background as they are reposted, so where a story has been widely retold with errors, we say so.
Small gestures between strangers
These are the acts that cost little and take only a minute, which is exactly why they are easy to skip. The people in these photos did not.
An umbrella in the downpour
Photo: shared on social media
This four-frame sequence, apparently taken at a market in China, shows a young woman crossing a flooded street to hold her umbrella over a man sitting on the ground in heavy rain. The arrows were added by whoever first shared it. Her name and the exact place were never reliably reported, but the photo became one of the most reposted images of kindness that year.
A paper shield for an open window
Photo: Imgur
Someone noticed a car parked with its window open just before rain and taped coloured paper across the gap. The handwritten note on the paper says they did not want the owner's car to get wet, and wishes them a nice day. It is the kind of help the owner would never have known to thank anyone for.
Lunch from the next table
Photo: Imgur
A young couple with a new baby found this note after their lunch had been paid for. The writer, an older woman, explains that she wanted to offer to hold the baby so they could both eat, but her husband said she would look like a stalker. Since she has teenagers and knows what is coming, she tells them to snuggle their little one while they can.
Candy for the passengers
Photo: Daily Mail
Parents of 14-week-old twin boys handed bags of sweets and earplugs to fellow passengers on the babies' first flight in 2012. The note, written as if from the twins, apologises in advance for any crying and points out where the parents are sitting. It is a thoughtful way to turn a tense situation into a friendly one, though no passenger should expect it of every parent.
A princess gets asked for her autograph
Photo: Reddit
A security guard at the entrance to Disney's Magic Kingdom bends down to ask a little girl in a princess dress for her autograph. According to the parent who shared the photo, he did the same for many young "princesses" that day, and his autograph book was full of children's scribbles. Theme-park staff are trained to stay in the spirit of the place, but this guard clearly went beyond the job description.
Hurricane Sandy, New York, 2012
Hurricane Sandy came ashore in New Jersey on 29 October 2012. In New York City at least 43 people died and nearly two million lost power. The days that followed produced some of the most memorable images of neighbours helping neighbours.
Free care on the sidewalk
Photo: ShortFormBlog
With power out across lower Manhattan, a doctor named Dave Ores propped a cardboard sign on a traffic cone on a Manhattan street, offering free medical care. Many residents could not reach pharmacies or clinics, and simple help such as checking a wound or a prescription mattered a great deal that week.
Power to share
A household that still had electricity ran extension cords and a power strip out to its front railings. The sign invites anyone passing to charge their phone. For people trying to reach family or insurers after the storm, a working phone was a lifeline.
A gift given directly
Photo: Reddit
A storm-hit homeowner found this envelope. The writer explains that they had planned to give the money to the Red Cross but decided to hand it straight to the family, wishing them luck with their recovery. The Reddit user who posted it said he and his pregnant wife had lost much of their home to flooding.
Carried out of the floodwater
Photo: Twitter: @andjustice4some
A firefighter wades through knee-deep water in a flooded basement stairwell, carrying a husky to safety. Pets were often left behind in fast-rising water, and rescue crews brought out many animals along with people.
A bucket brigade at Bellevue Hospital
Photo: Facebook
When flooding knocked out fuel pumps at Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan, staff and volunteers formed a human chain to pass containers of fuel up 13 floors to keep the backup generators running. Bellevue was eventually evacuated, with the last of its roughly 700 patients moved out by 31 October. The photo, taken looking down the stairwell, shows how much work one chain of people can do together.
Police officers off script
Boots for a barefoot man in Times Square
Photo: Facebook
On a cold night on 14 November 2012, NYPD officer Larry DePrimo, then 25, saw a barefoot homeless man near Seventh Avenue and 44th Street. He went into a nearby shoe shop, bought insulated boots and thermal socks for about $75 with the help of an employee discount, and knelt to help the man put them on. A tourist from Arizona, Jennifer Foster, took the picture on her phone and later wrote to the police department about it, mentioning that she had worked in law enforcement herself. When the NYPD posted her photo on Facebook, it gathered more than 362,000 likes within days.
A blind boy's day as a police officer
Photo: Mill Creek Multimedia
Photo: Mill Creek Multimedia
Photo: Mill Creek Multimedia
Gage Hancock-Stevens, a 13-year-old who is blind, had long dreamed of being a police officer. The police department in Bellevue, Washington, made him an honorary officer for a day, complete with a uniform bearing his name, a patrol car with lights on and a hug from a senior officer. The cake reads "Officer Gage" around a Bellevue badge, with the words "You are our hero".
Families and teammates who refused to leave anyone out
A wheelchair turned into an ice-cream van
A boy who uses a wheelchair sits at the wheel of a homemade "Buster's Ice Cream" truck built around his chair for Halloween. Families of children with disabilities have since turned this into a tradition, building pirate ships, fire engines and spacecraft so that the chair becomes the best part of the costume rather than something to hide.
Matching insulin pumps
Photo: shared on social media
A young boy with type 1 diabetes grins between his parents, who reportedly had tattoos of insulin pumps inked on their stomachs so that he would not feel different wearing his real one. The photo circulated without names, so we could not confirm who the family is or whether the tattoos were permanent.
Number 17 starts on senior night
Photo: Courtney Sacco / via annarbor.com
Photo: Courtney Sacco / via annarbor.com
Photo: Courtney Sacco / via annarbor.com
The boys' soccer team at Dexter High School in Michigan surprised its team manager, a senior with Down syndrome, by giving him a spot in the starting line-up on senior night. The photos show the coach talking him through the moment, the player standing with his hand on his heart for the anthem, and his teammates lifting him up afterwards. His teammates' reaction says a lot about how much he was already part of the squad.
Together after Afghanistan
Photo: Tim Dodd Photography
This long series by photographer Tim Dodd follows Taylor Morris, a US Navy explosives specialist from Iowa, and his girlfriend Danielle Kelly. Morris was reportedly wounded by an explosive device in Afghanistan in 2012 and lost both arms and both legs. The photos trace his recovery from hospital bed to dancing with Danielle, and the couple's story drew messages of support from around the world.
Standing up to hate
"Sorry people of America"
Photo: Facebook: Libya Alhurra Livestream
After the attack on the US diplomatic compound in Benghazi on 11 September 2012, which killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, Libyans held demonstrations in Benghazi and Tripoli condemning the violence. This boy's handwritten sign apologises to Americans and says the attack does not reflect Islam or the Prophet. Nine days later, about 30,000 people marched in Benghazi against armed militias.
The "maroon wall" at College Station
When the Westboro Baptist Church announced it would picket the July 2012 funeral of Lt. Col. Roy Tisdale, a former Texas A&M student killed in a shooting at Fort Bragg, Aggies organised a response. More than 650 current and former students, dressed in maroon, lined the route to form a human wall between the mourners and any protesters. In the end, the Westboro group did not appear.
Another widely shared photo from that period showed a boy holding his own handmade sign beside a line of Westboro pickets outside a university in Kansas. We have not reproduced it because the protesters' signs in the frame carry a slur, but the spirit is the same: one young person quietly disagreeing in public.
Big efforts for one person
Mail for Scott
Photo: Mashable
Scott Widak, a man with Down syndrome who was seriously ill with liver disease, loved getting post. In 2012 his nephew Sean shared his mailing address on Reddit and asked if anyone would write. Hundreds of letters, parcels and small gifts followed, some with notes held up for the camera and one with a "Macho Man" mask that Scott put on straight away.
Caine's Arcade
In 2011, nine-year-old Caine Monroy built an elaborate cardboard arcade in his father's auto-parts shop in East Los Angeles, but almost nobody came. Filmmaker Nirvan Mullick became his first customer and then organised a surprise crowd of players. His short film about it, released on 9 April 2012, passed a million views on its first day, and a college fund for Caine raised more than $200,000. You can watch the full film on Vimeo.
An annual shopping spree
Houston Texans receiver Andre Johnson holds up a pair of very long Toys "R" Us receipts. Through his foundation he hosted a yearly holiday shopping spree for children in the care of Child Protective Services, aged 8 to 16, and in 2012 the bill came to more than $19,000.
A trophy on the ward
Photo: Imgur
A rugby player carries a large trophy into a children's hospital room, where a little girl on what appears to be a dialysis machine throws her arms up in delight. The photo circulated without a reliable caption naming the player or the hospital. What it shows clearly is how much a short visit can lift a long hospital stay.
A quick-thinking little girl
This news video tells the story of a young girl who, according to the report, roused her mother during a medical emergency by slapping her with a slice of pizza. We could not independently confirm the details, but the broader point is a good one: even small children can be taught how to recognise an emergency and call for help.
Animals and the people who look after them
Digging sheep out of the snow in Iceland
Photo: Reddit
An early autumn blizzard in north Iceland, reportedly in September 2012, caught thousands of sheep still out on summer pastures. Farmers and volunteers spent days probing snowdrifts and digging animals out by hand; here one rescuer reaches into a hollow where a sheep is sheltering, and another carries a snow-crusted ewe through the storm.
"I love her even with three legs"
Via Twenty Two Words and Cheezburger
A vet shared this card from a young girl after her family's dog, hit by a car, had to have a leg amputated. Her thank-you note says she loves the dog even with three legs. Dogs usually adapt to life on three legs remarkably well, and the note shows that children often adapt just as quickly.
A kitten pulled from a drainage channel
One man lies flat on a concrete bank while his friend holds his legs, so he can reach a small white cat stranded just above the water. It is a simple, slightly risky piece of teamwork that worked.
Schoep in Lake Superior
Photo: Hannah Stonehouse Hudson / johnschoep.zenfolio.com via Facebook
John Unger cradles his 19-year-old dog Schoep in the waters of Lake Superior near Bayfield, Wisconsin, in July 2012; the water eased the old dog's arthritis and helped him sleep. Unger has said Schoep helped him through a very dark time years earlier. Photographer Hannah Stonehouse Hudson's picture was viewed millions of times, donations paid for Schoep's veterinary care, and he lived to the age of 20.
A friend for the car ride
A toddler asleep in her car seat hugs a ginger cat that has curled up on her lap. There is no rescue or great sacrifice here, just the easy trust between a small child and a family pet.
Why these moments still matter
More than a decade on, most of these pictures have been shared so often that their original captions are lost. That makes it all the more worth remembering the real people behind them: an officer who spent his own money on boots, nurses climbing stairs in the dark, a boy who built an arcade from boxes.
They also show that kindness comes in different sizes. Sometimes one person is enough, with an umbrella or a note. Sometimes it takes a team, a crowd or a whole city. If there is a practical lesson, it is to look for the version that fits the moment in front of you, whether that is paying for a stranger's lunch or simply offering a phone charger.
For more photographs like these, see 22 Moving Photo Stories of Care, Reunion and Perseverance.
Sources: Christian Science Monitor, 29 November 2012: NYC cop buys boots for homeless man; Wikipedia: Effects of Hurricane Sandy in New York; TheBlaze, 6 July 2012: Texas A&M human wall; Wikipedia: 2012 Benghazi attack; Wikipedia: Caine's Arcade; Wikipedia: Andre Johnson; Inforum: Dog made famous in Lake Superior photo dies. The collection was originally compiled by BuzzFeed; individual photo credits appear under each image.
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