A simple act of caring creates an endless ripple. This is the message of this inspiring story. It’s a commercial for Care & Share, a charity. In the video, a grandmother and her grandchildren are at the super market pushing a cart through the aisles. The grandmother reaches up and puts a discount food item that appears to be grain or flour and puts it into the cart.
Meanwhile, the little girl is in the bakery section. She is looking at all the cakes in their little containers, all round and lit up in the display. A young gentleman reaches in and pulls out the cake for the little girl because she is not tall enough to reach it. She smiles and goes away to find her grandmother with the cake.
The little boy, little girl and grandmother go to the checkout line and the cashier is bagging up the food they have selected. There is a small plastic container on the belt. Inside it is an elegant small cake. The peach cake comes up on the scanner and costs quite a bit more than the other food. The cashier tells the grandmother the total of their bill. The grandmother checks the bills that she is holding. The little boy counts out change to pay for the groceries, hoping they will have enough to make it. He shakes his head at his grandmother to let her know that they will not be able to pay the full total of the bill.
The grandmother looks at the cashier lady. “I’m sorry,” she says apologetically, “Can I return the cake please?”
“Sure, yes,” the cashier says to her. The yellow cake is taken out of the plastic bag it has already been placed in. The little girl sees this and turns to her grandmother. “I want the cake, please, I won’t ask for anything else,” the girl says.
“Next time, please, when we can afford it,” the grandmother says to the girl.
“Last time you said that,” the girl says. She goes and takes both of the plastic bags full of discount groceries to carry home. The brother runs up to the girl and takes the bags from her to hold. He tells her that next time they will get her what she wants. “Let’s buy something else, okay?” He says to his sister.
The young man from the cake display is getting his groceries rung up behind them. He tells the cashier that he would like to buy the same cake that has been set aside. He catches up to the family and extends the cake, saying that it is for them.
The grandmother says she cannot accept it. The man says “Please.” She tells him that there isn’t any reason for him to buy the cake for them. But the man smiles and explains what happened many years ago when he was seven. A simple act of caring creates an endless ripple.
He recalls how he was a little boy standing with his mother in a bakery shop. His mother wanted to buy him a cake for his birthday, but they didn’t have enough money. Then a man came up. “I had never met him before,” the young man recalled. The man paid for the cake and knelt down to the boy, who turned around. He held the cake out to him.
“Here, have the cake,” he told the boy. “Happy birthday.” The boy took the cake and the man ruffled the boy’s hair as he stood up. The man turned to walk away, and then he turned around in the doorway and looked at the boy. The boy looked at him gratefully. The man smiled and walked away. So you see, it is true. A simple act of caring creates an endless ripple. That little boy was the same young man who bought them the cake today.
“I have never forgotten,” he says. The grandmother thanks him, and he thanks her back. She gets his number to compensate him for the cake. He asks the child if they will do the same thing for someone else in the future.
The kids come back and their grandfather is there in a wheelchair. They give it to him. He thanks them and smiles, and then confides in his wife that she should not have spent the money as they cannot afford it. She tells him that actually, a nice man paid for it. He gave her a note. It is the note that the man who bought him the cake gave him all those years ago.
The man opens it and it says, “A simple act of caring creates an endless ripple.” The older man smiles. The kids and his wife come in with the cake, which is lit up with candles. They sing happy birthday to him. The good things we do continue to be remembered and passed on. Care about someone and share today and create an endless ripple of your own.
Enjoy the video.
(Video Credited to careandshare.sg)
