By By Kelsy Ackerman

The holidays, which are usually considered times of giving and sharing, are approaching. There are some who have the luxury of indulging in holiday shopping and buying gifts for those they love. Others who can barely afford everyday items.

It’s hard to think of today’s world as a “kind” world. It’s almost unimaginable to think, with threats of terrorism, rising crime statistics and the soaring prices of just about everything under the sun, that someone would stop to trust and help a complete stranger. However, those people do exist.

Meet Gina Watt, a 20-year-old mother of a three-week-old girl named Jaidyn Lee. Watt, her daughter and boyfriend were eating dinner at “C’s” Restaurant in Arlington, N.Y. one evening when a woman walked up to her asking about her daughter.

“She asked how old Jaidyn was and kept talking about how hard it is to raise a daughter nowadays.” The next thing she knew, the woman’s husband came to the table and said, “our baby is now 20 years old, it can get rough. Dinner is on me.”

He then dropped a hundred dollar bill on the table and walked out. “I was in complete shock,” Watt said. “I didn’t even think those kind of people existed.”

When a caring individual takes time out of his or her own life to help someone, that is a random act of kindness.

The world is full of those caring people, but many do not know about them. because these people do not do it to be recognized, they do it out of the goodness of their heart.

“Two of my friends were trying to buy a house in Maryland and they were having their first baby,” Mike from Brooklyn explains. “They needed another $10,000 to make the financing work and they didn’t have it. I called a friend of mine at Manufacturers Hanover Trust (then a still existing bank) and he called the bank in Maryland.”

The money was then wired and Mike’s friends “suddenly” were qualified. He had given them the money, they never found out and he wants to keep it that way.

There is even an organization based on kindness of others called the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation. It is a nonprofit organization whose mission statement says, “The Random Acts of Kindness Foundation inspires people to practice kindness and to ‘pass it on’ to others.”

The organization was started in 1995 after the book “Random Acts of Kindness” was published. “The foundation was started because the book generated such interest and inquiry,” said Julie Kauffman, communication manager at the foundation. “We are a web-based foundation and our main goal is to spread kindness.”

Their Web site also gives ideas and lesson plans for schools to teach about random acts of kindness.

It has been said that doing kind things for others is contagious. This thought sparked the idea for the 2000 book “Pay It Forward” by Catherine Ryan Hyde. The book is based on the idea of doing something nice for someone, and instead of having them pay you back, they pay it forward by doing a charitable act for someone else.

In the book, a teacher inspires his students with a project where they are supposed to think of an idea to change the world.

Trevor, a ver smart 11-year-old, thinks of the idea “Pay It Forward,” where you do three nice things for three different people and instead of them paying you back, they do something nice for someone else.

He puts the plan into action and the book unfolds from there. It seems as if Hyde started a wave of kindness by writing the book.

From the success of the idea, Hyde created the Pay It Forward Foundation.

“‘Pay It Forward’ is a book, but it’s also an idea,” Hyde stated on the foundation’s Web site. “It’s an action plan within a work of fiction. In fact, since the book was released in January of 2000, a real-life social movement has emerged, not just in the U.S., but worldwide. What began as a work of fiction has already become much more.”

People love to hear about good things happening to others and most love being a part of it. So, is kindness contagious?

One would like to think so.

Sean Ewing, 21, a senior at the University, describes a heart-warming tale of kindness from when he was in high school and worked at a local pharmacy.

“We all knew of one couple, a younger man and woman that came in most nights on weekends,” Ewing said. “The couple would buy all Eckerd brand products and seemed to be counting pennies in a literal sense. Sometimes they would not have enough money to buy everything and had to carefully decide what they could do without. One day, I just felt awful for them.”

The couple came in with their little blonde-haired girl in a worn stroller, obviously very hot and uncomfortable due to the walk they had just endured to get to the pharmacy.

“I saw the little girl reaching for some stuffed animals hanging off a side rack, her mother sighed and put them back.”

When they came to the register Ewing rang them up and with all of their stuff he added an extra bag. In it was the toy the child wanted along with a few others he had purchased himself while they were shopping.

“I didn’t really want to make a show of giving it to them

or make them feel bad. I just wanted to do something nice,” Ewing said.

“I felt really good about myself, and on an even broader level, about life. I’m not egotistical enough to think I’m the last nice guy, so it’s reassuring to know that some other dude is doing the right thing, just because it’s right.”

Many say that it is only at times of tragedy that people reach out to others. When Hurricane Katrina hit, the entire world opened its arms and wallets to help those in need. This was very generous, of course, but why is this? Is it that national tragedy seems more important than the everyday favor?

Joseph Bruno, campus minister at the University, doesn’t think so. “It certainly seems to me that tragedy makes people more willing to assist those in need. I just wonder why it couldn’t be like that all the time? Why does it have to come to tragedy to make people more socially conscious?”

After working in a high school and college environment, Bruno says he has seen the goodness that each individual possesses. “Each of us has the potential to do good, and I think the more we encourage students to use their talents to not only help themselves, but the greater good, the better society will be.”

Is it that people are willing to help out in times of desperation, or are these moments just more publicized than others?

We heard stories during the wake of Katrina, about the man who saved his family along with three others, the child who walked for hours with five younger siblings in tow, the millions of dollars donated by celebrities and the many goods given by nations all over the globe.

We hear about these things because they are widely exposed by the media.

What we don’t all hear about is the single mother from East Patchogue, N.Y., who, after talking online to a complete stranger for only a few weeks was offered a trip to Disney world.

“The first thing I thought was something sexual, but he assured me that he wanted to do this from his heart and I did not have to meet him, all I had to do was call him to tell him when I wanted to go and it would be taken care of,” Liz says.

“My jaw dropped to my feet. I didn’t think he was real or thought that it could all be a sick joke.” Liz thanked Michael, the Internet stranger, but said she could not accept such an offer. Michael insisted, saying that his children get to go all the time to Disney and that her son deserved it and he wanted nothing in return.

Liz, still hesitant, thanked him, but turned down the offer reassuring the ever-persistent Michael that if at any time she changed her mind she would let him know.

“One day, something hit me and the next time I spoke with Michael I told him that I would take him up on his offer,” Liz said. “Within a week he Fed-exed two all expense paid Delta vacation tickets to Disneyworld. I wrapped them in a box and put them under the Christmas tree and labeled it ‘From: Santa’.”

Today, Liz is 43 years old and is still in awe of what happened.

While we tend to think not enough people are reaching out to those in need, the reality is we rarely hear about such acts of kindness.

Nine out of every 10 people surveyed had a compelling story to tell regarding something that had happened to them or something that they had done for someone else. Most had more then one.

People shared stories about nursing a bird back to health after the vet said there was no hope, giving an elderly woman walking on the side of the road a ride to her hair appointment, paying for a newly wed couple’s dinner at a restaurant that only accepted cash and many more inspiring and wonderful stories.

It seems to be that indeed people are helping others; it’s just that not many are talking about it. So, instead of the original plan to preach about how people must motivate, how little is being done and how everyone must change, instead don’t change a thing. Do exactly what you have been doing and pass it on.

So, during this holiday season, remember those that won’t have presents to open, or those that won’t even have the comforts of their own home to celebrate their traditions. Reach out and help with a simple act of random kindness.

Random acts of kindess can be simple things like donating a dollar for a good cause. In this case the Stuff the Stocking donations went to the Bethany House Foundation. (Mike Golz/The Chronicle)