Kevin's "Trade" At Karma Kitchen Today
ServiceSpace
--Audrey Lin
2 minute read
Nov 23, 2014

 

Today at Karma Kitchen, several of us were disarmed by the power of assuming value everywhere. :)

The morning rolled off to a quiet start-- where, within the first hour of opening, our crew of 15 spirited volunteers were serving 3 guests. With an empty restaurant filled with eager hands to serve, we scratched our heads at what to do. An experienced volunteer suggested we take the spirit of Karma Kitchen beyond the walls, and make the slow day an excuse to practice generosity in other ways. A few folks got busy crafting up cards with inspiring quotes. Two others picked up some flowers and went around the neighborhood leaving them on people's windshields. After a half hour of distributing flowers and cards to people and car windshields in the area, four of the five folks came back just as the crowd started to pick up.




One volunteer, Kevin, was gone for a long time.

We started wondering, "Did he got lost? Should we call him? Do we even have his number?" Finally, he ventured back into the restaurant and swiftly jumped back into waiting tables.

"How did it go?" I asked him.

"Some interesting things happened," was all he said before ducking over to the community table to deliver some mango lassis.

Later on, in our closing circle, we went around and shared reflections from the day. Kevin's kindness adventure totally blew us away! He had walked around the streets looking for people and cars to offer the cards he had made. As he got closer downtown, a homeless man stopped him and asked for spare change. Kevin got out his wallet and offered him a few dollars. The man saw that there was still a five dollar bill in his wallet, and asked if he could have that too. Kevin paused for a moment, then looked at him and offered, "Can we make a trade?"



The man agreed, and he returned the 3 one-dollar bills in exchange for the $5. Then Kevin asked, "How about one more trade?" And he offered the man one of his handmade cards in exchange for the five-dollar-bill.

To his delight, the man accepted, and returned the $5, opting for Kevin's handmade card with an inspiring quote instead. It was beautiful that the homeless man chose the art-with-heart handmade card, but what's even more beautiful-- and what the homeless man didn't know-- was that, inspired by the Giving To People Who Give video Trishna had shared, Kevin had tucked a few twenty dollar bills inside his cards, including this one.

As I heard this story-- which was a shining gem among so many others that transpired today-- I couldn't help but be humbled by the infinite supply of generosity in the world, when we simply carry the eyes to see it.



More photos from the day here.
 

 

Posted by Audrey Lin on Nov 23, 2014


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