When the news feels like a constant argument, it helps to look at what ordinary people actually do for each other. This collection gathers 24 widely shared photographs of kindness in the United States: a teenager who shielded classmates during a school shooting, a highway patrol officer who talked a young man back from the edge of the Golden Gate Bridge, a stranger who tutored a father on the subway, a classmate who gave a kidney almost fifty years after graduation. Some are famous news stories. Others began as a single post on Reddit or Facebook.
We have tried to add what is known about each moment: who was involved, when it happened and why it struck a chord. Where details come only from the person who posted the photo, we say so, because viral captions are not always accurate. A few photos in the original collection were matched with the wrong captions, and we have corrected them here.
What links these images is not heroism on a grand scale. It is attention: someone noticed another person struggling and decided to step in. Research on prosocial behaviour suggests that small, spontaneous acts like these do real good for the helper as well as the person helped. At the end, you will find a few simple ways to add your own.
The image used to introduce the original collection shows a man in a Confederate-flag tank top kneeling by a car jack. It circulated online alongside a story that a stranger of a different background stopped to help him fix his car; we could not confirm the details, but the picture became shorthand for kindness across political and racial lines.
Courage when it counted
Shared by h8ed-program on Reddit
Anthony Borges, Parkland, Florida. On 14 February 2018 a gunman attacked Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Anthony Borges, 15, reportedly tried to hold a classroom door shut to protect the students inside, about 20 by most accounts, and was shot five times. He survived after weeks in hospital and many operations, and became known as one of the bravest students of that terrible day.
Kevin Briggs and Kevin Berthia. California Highway Patrol sergeant Kevin Briggs patrolled the Golden Gate Bridge for years and is credited with persuading more than 200 people not to jump. The top photo shows him in 2005 talking with Kevin Berthia, who was standing on the outer ledge. Berthia survived, went on to become a father and a suicide-prevention advocate, and in 2013 presented Briggs with an award from the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, shown in the lower photo. If you are struggling, please reach out: in the US you can call or text 988.
Shared by 1Voice1Life on Reddit
A rescue remembered ten years later. During Hurricane Katrina in 2005, US Air Force pararescueman Mike Maroney lifted a little girl to safety from flooded New Orleans, and the photo of her hugging him became one of the storm’s best-known images. A decade later the two were reunited as adults, as the photo on the right shows. Her joy is a reminder that rescuers rarely learn how the lives they saved turned out.
Strangers on streets, platforms and trains
Shared by Carl Manley
A walk home on the ice. According to the man who shared this photo, an elderly woman asked him to walk her home one winter because she was afraid of slipping on the ice. The two became friends, and he said he now walks her home almost every day. Falls are a leading cause of injury for older adults, so an arm to hold on a slippery street is a very practical gift.
Shared by LyssaP on Imgur
Help with a tie. On a station platform, an older man bends down to knot the tie of a younger stranger who was struggling with it. It is a tiny moment, but anyone who has rushed to an interview or a funeral knows how much a calm pair of hands can mean.
Shared by Denise Wilson on Facebook
A maths lesson on the New York subway. The woman who took this photo wrote that the man in red was studying fractions so he could help his son, who had failed a maths test. The passenger beside him, a former maths teacher, offered to help, quizzed him and corrected every mistake. By the end of the ride the father understood a method he could take home to his child.
Shared by Go_Habs_Go31 on Reddit
Neighbours on the subway. Posted around the Fourth of July in 2017 as a tribute to what makes America great, this photo shows a woman cradling a sleeping baby while the little girl of a Muslim family beside her leans in, delighted. Nobody is doing anything dramatic. They are simply sharing a seat and a smile, and that was the point.
Children leading the way
Shared by itsallhistory on Reddit
A hug in a fast-food restaurant. Two small boys who had never met embrace in the middle of a restaurant. Young children often make friends in seconds, without the hesitations adults learn later. The photo spread widely because it showed that ease so clearly.
Shared by Arsalan Iftikhar (TheMuslimGuy.com)
Jack’s $20 for a mosque. A seven-year-old Texas boy named Jack had been saving for an iPad, but when a local mosque was vandalised he gave his $20 to help repair it. In response, the commentator Arsalan Iftikhar and supporters sent Jack an iPad with a thank-you letter from the American Muslim community, asking him to “please enjoy this Apple iPad with our sincere thanks”. Kindness, here, travelled in both directions.
Lunch with a neighbour. According to the original post, these teenagers passed the same homeless man every day on their way to school and decided to take him out to eat. The original photographer is not known. Gestures like this matter beyond the meal: people experiencing homelessness often say that being ignored is one of the hardest parts.
The hug felt around the world. At a November 2014 protest in Portland, Oregon, following the Ferguson grand jury decision, 12-year-old Devonte Hart held a sign offering free hugs and, in tears, hugged police sergeant Bret Barnum. The photo, widely credited to photographer Johnny Nguyen, became a symbol of hope at a tense moment. Sadly, Devonte was among six children killed in 2018 when his adoptive mothers drove their car off a cliff in California, a tragedy that later raised hard questions about child welfare checks.
Caring for the elderly, the sick and people with disabilities
Shared by rolltideburr on Reddit
Free lawn care for those who need it. The poster’s grandmother sits with two volunteers from a local group that mows lawns for free for older people, disabled people and single mothers. The shirts appear to show Raising Men Lawn Care Service, the volunteer project started by Rodney Smith Jr. in Huntsville, Alabama, which encourages young people to mow for those who cannot.
Shared by Faris-Hilton on Reddit
A carer who became family. The young man in this photo wrote that he grew up in a children’s home after losing his parents, and this woman was his key worker there. When he grew too old to stay, she was retiring after about 40 years of care work and told him she could not bear to lose him. Fifteen years on, he called her his grandma and said no one made him happier.
Shared by harlesm on Reddit
A nurse greets a former patient. In this short clip, a woman in a wheelchair, who had been paralysed from the waist down, rolls back into a hospital corridor and a nurse bends down to welcome her with open arms. Nurses spend long hours with patients through frightening times, and reunions like this show how deep those bonds can run.
Shared by super_slide on Reddit
Beni, the Uber driver who stayed. The patient in this photo wrote that his Uber driver, Beni, drove him to hospital and then stayed to keep him company, because most of his family lived in another state. Being alone in an emergency room is frightening; a familiar face, even a new one, makes a difference.
Shared by attheisstt on Reddit
A waiter lends a hand. In a busy restaurant, a waiter helps feed a woman with a disability so that her husband, who usually helps her, can finish his own meal. Carers rarely get a break, and this small act gave him one.
Shared by Zetice on Reddit
Christmas with Don. On Christmas Day 2017 a care worker known on Twitter as Nikki B shared selfies with Don, a resident with dementia whose family could not visit. She wrote that he had been crying and that she told him she would be his family that day. The tweet was shared tens of thousands of times, a reminder of how lonely holidays can be in care homes.
Shared by Laurinha Victória on Facebook
Help at a food court table. A fast-food worker sits down to help a customer with a disability eat. The clip was shared by a Brazilian Facebook user, and the setting may well be in Brazil rather than the United States, but the gesture translates in any language.
Kindness on the job
The professor who held the baby. A student wrote that a classmate had to bring her newborn to a geography class. When the baby began to cry during a quiz, the professor took over, feeding the baby and rocking the car seat so the young mother could finish. Many student parents drop out because childcare fails at the worst moment; this professor made sure that did not happen that day.
Shared by John7122 on Reddit
A police escort to the finish. In Louisville, Kentucky, a police officer walked arm in arm with a runner who, according to the post, had lost about 200 pounds and was completing her first 10K, the city’s Rodes City Run. Her face in the second photo says it all.
Video: Roman Atwood on YouTube
Christmas elves in the park. In a video by YouTuber Roman Atwood, helpers dressed as elves quietly leave food and gifts beside people sleeping rough while they rest. The man in these stills wakes to find the presents and looks up in surprise. Staged videos have their critics, but the gifts were real.
Friendships and second chances
Shared on Reddit
Words with Friends, then real friends. According to the post, a 22-year-old man from Harlem became friends with an 81-year-old woman after a year of playing the word game Words with Friends together online. He then travelled to Florida to meet her in person for the first time. Friendships across generations are good for both sides; loneliness is a serious health risk for older adults.
Photo: Sam Sweeney, ABC7 (WJLA)
A kidney from a classmate. Kenneth Walker, a Washington journalist who had been on dialysis for 18 months, emailed his old classmates from Archbishop Carroll High School’s class of 1969 asking for help. Charlie Ball, a classmate he barely knew, answered and donated a kidney. The transplant took place at George Washington University Hospital on 16 April 2018.
Photo: 100 Suits
A suit and a fresh start. The nonprofit 100 Suits, founded by Kevin Livingston in Queens, New York, gives free suits to men leaving prison so they can go to job interviews looking and feeling ready. A good first impression can be the difference between a second chance and a return to old patterns.
Why small kindnesses matter, and how to add your own
Psychology backs up what these photos suggest. Studies of prosocial behaviour link helping others with higher self-esteem, life satisfaction and mental health, and a 2020 meta-analysis of 126 studies found that spontaneous, informal kindness was linked to well-being even more strongly than formal volunteering. In other words, the subway tutor and the man walking his neighbour home were probably doing themselves some good too.
A few easy ways to start:
- Offer practical help where you see it: an arm on an icy path, a hand with a heavy bag, directions for someone who looks lost.
- Check in on an older neighbour, especially in bad weather or around holidays.
- Support local groups that mow lawns, deliver meals or provide clothes for job interviews.
- If you can, consider registering as an organ or blood donor; talk to a doctor about what is right for you.
None of the people in these photos set out to go viral. They saw someone who needed something and gave it. That is a kind of faith in humanity anyone can practise.
Sources: Collection first gathered by Bored Panda; photographers and posters credited under each image; Wikipedia: Stoneman Douglas High School shooting; Wikipedia: Kevin Briggs; Wikipedia: Hart family murders; WJLA: classmate kidney donation; Wikipedia: Prosocial behavior.
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