Initial goods

I love experiencing the kindness of strangers. Even more than the exchange of a quick "hello" between passers-by, or a chat while in line at a store. When someone you've never met displays pure goodwill, even as the recipient I feel proud of being human: never alone but part of a larger society of caring people who want to help one another.

Thanks to Matti, a fellow Freecycler*, I can cross of a few things from my needs list. A few people who wrote back to my post soliciting items, and she was the first person I could arrange to meet. Not only did she give me several essentials--all so well cared for--but what touched me is how she invited me in, so that she and her husband could help me out to the car! Obviously very generous and kind people, whom I would never have met otherwise.

This kind of experience is the added reward of my little experiment.

To see what Matti gave me, please see the page "Things Collected" (link at top of page) for photos.
*For those of you who are not familiar yet, Freecycle is a great online community of strangers exchanging free items--no sales, no bartering--sometimes without even meeting! It's a Yahoo group, and once signed up you can post either WANTED or OFFER messages and arrange for often anonymous drop-offs and pick-ups of no longer needed but potentially still useful, though sometimes random, objects without throwing them away.