After years of working with special needs children, Phillippa Fabbri shared the experience she had that inspired her career shift; it came down to a random act of kindness.
South Africa (09 February 2022) – Philippa Fabbri shared her story of kindness with us in the hopes that it would inspire others to share their stories in honour of Random Act of Kindness Day. Random Act of Kindness Day is on the 17th of February.
The Random Act of Kindness Foundation founded random Act of Kindness Day. The day falls into Random Acts of Kindness Week, which is from the 13th to the 19th of February 2022.
Before Phillippa shared her story with us, she shared it on social media and called the post “The day I met James”. Phillippa was the one that did the random act of kindness in this story, and it inspired her to go on and become a special needs teacher.
Her kind deed took place many years ago, but it has shaped hundreds of lives since that day.
“When I was at NMU, back then it was UPE studying to be a Foundation Phase teacher; I worked at CNA as a teller. Every Saturday and Sunday from 9 am to 1 pm or 1 pm to 7 pm. This suited me fine, and you can imagine how much stationery I bought on my employee discount… did I mention that I was studying teaching??? We made flashcards, posters, activity cards, games…. and there was no such thing as a laminator or colour printer back then either…but I digress!
Every Sunday when I worked, a father and son would come in at 10 am without fail. The dad would buy the Sunday Times, and his son would buy the Animal Talk magazine. It seemed as if this was their weekly routine, and there wasn’t a lot of communicating going on between them. They walked in together, went over to the shelf where the magazine was, got their items, and came back to the till to pay.
One week, there was an issue. The Animal Talk magazine, for some reason, was out of stock. The dad came over to me with a look of absolute horror on his face and asked where the magazine was. His son was behind him, red in the face and clearly agitated. I explained that we were sold out of that magazine.
The son began to cry and became extremely upset. His poor dad tried to calm him down, but he wasn’t listening.
He began pacing up and down, rubbing his hands together and shouting for his magazine. Eventually, the dad managed to take him out of the shop, as people were beginning to stare. I really felt awful for the poor father and wondered why his son was making such a commotion over a magazine.
I wrote out a note for the weekday staff to please place an order for the magazine, to keep the next one aside under my name, and to not put them all out on the shelf. When I arrived at work the following Saturday, the two magazines were in my locker, and on Sunday, I made sure they were under the counter for when the dad and his son arrived at 10 am.
Sure enough, they came in at exactly 10 am, and I pulled out the magazines and gave them to the boy explaining that I had kept them for him. The look of relief and joy on both of their faces was priceless. The boy could hardly control himself. He clapped and jumped around, and his dad told me in a quiet voice that his son had autism and loves animals and that he would page through the magazine and sometimes make sounds or noises that would match the animal that he saw in the magazine. This was how he was learning about the world.
His dad would read articles about the animals, and they would try and find opportunities to see the animals in real life by going on walks or visits to game parks, etc.
The visit to CNA once a week with his son was one of the highlights of his week because they could spend time together, and he could try and encourage social interaction with the people that they would meet on their outing.
His name was James.
I’ve never forgotten that day, and it was that experience that I’ve had in my life that encouraged me to go into special needs education, and I’ve never once regretted it.”
Phillippa hopes others will come forward and share their own random acts of kindness, whether they were the recipients or the person doing the kind act.