A little over a month ago, I featured a company called everydayhero for Philanthropy Friday. Their digital platform allows you to track your own giving footprint. (You can read that article HERE.)
Through my conversations with everydayhero, I was asked if I would like to be featured on their blog. Of course I said yes! They sent me some very thoughtful questions on philanthropy and the nonprofit sector, which I answered from my unique perspective. I discovered the post was published last week during my big day with PSI in Washington DC. You can read the questions and my answers on the everydayhero blog.
~~~~~~~~~~
Speaking of every heroes, I had a wonderful exchange with a cab driver on my way to Reagan National Airport on Friday morning that I wanted to share. The cab driver was pleasant and easy to talk to and immediately thanked me for being cordial with him. He noted that he sees different faces in his taxi every 10 minutes or so and he never knows what he’s going to get.
Early that morning he had a married couple in his cab rushing to get to the airport. At some point, they started to fight and things got pretty escalated. My friendly cab driver, whose name I never got, did the equivalent of the parental “don’t make me turn this car around” move. He pulled over and told the couple if they didn’t stop yelling and fighting he would take them straight back to the hotel they just left. He did not want to be witness to the negativity in his cab. The couple was angry at first, but they calmed down in order to make their flight. He told me the woman apologized profusely during the rest of their ride.
I’m not sure if my cab driver’s act was of everyday hero status, but he certainly made an impression on me. I wonder if he made that couple think about their actions. Who knows, maybe they even apologized to each other in the airport.
Turns out, my cabbie was only a part-time taxi driver. He was driving to help pay for his daughter’s $80,000 / year medical school bills. His full-time job? A professor of organic chemistry at George Washington University. He’s even writing a book so that his students don’t have to memorize everything he teaches them.
You never know who you will run into in life. My ride to the airport was pretty quick, but there was something about it that made me think that it was meant to be. I can only hope the couple before me felt the same way.
~~~~~~~~~~
Don’t forget to hop on over to the everydayhero blog and read my Q&A
