Gary | Eden Terrace
“I’m an Australia-born New Zealander. I recently became a New Zealand citizen. I work in the social service sector. I’ve done that for about 30 years. My passions are choral music, and art, and I love helping people.
The last time I did a random act of kindness was on Queen Street in the city, and I saw a mother begging with her child, and I knew the mother from some work that I had done some time beforehand, so I didn’t want her to know that I was the one giving her the money. I particularly wanted it to be for the child, to make the child’s day a bit happier.
So I gave the money to a friend of mine and asked if they would go over and give the money to the mother, and tell them that it was to buy a treat for the child, and it was lovely to be on the other side of the street and just see that the child looked very happy, and that the mother looked almost relieved when she got that money from someone who was actually a stranger to her.
I think it’s really important to do random acts of kindness, because we’re all connected in one way or another, and if we can help each other just be doing random things and being kind to one another it will make the world, and it’ll certainly make our community a much happier and much stronger place.
I really like to help people. I was brought up in a really poor family, and I know what it’s like to be in that position, so I’ve worked my way to a position where I trained to help people. I’ve worked in social services for about 30 years. I love doing it, because I love trying to get people to a position in their lives where they have a really firm foundation and are able to make really positive life choices for themselves.
If people say to me they don’t want to give money to people because they’ll just be back there tomorrow and they’ll go and spend it on alcohol or drugs, I always remind them that people are in this position not because of choice, but because circumstances have brought them to where they are, and if they are going to spend it on drink, if they are going to spend it on drugs, I often say to people, perhaps that’s their only way of copying, and that’s their only way of getting through a cold night, or that’s their only way of getting through the situation that they’re in, and they have to ask themselves which came first, the alcohol or the drugs, or being in the position that they’re in, and that many of us are only one, one or two paydays away from being in that same position.”
